In 2019, Children’s Hospital selected Needham for its next satellite location. On Jan. 21 it will open its doors to patients.
The new building on 1st Avenue is the ninth in the hospital’s network. Similar to the Waltham location, it houses a number of medical specialties and departments as well as an extensive outpatient surgical unit which will begin with six state-of-the-art operating rooms and has the capacity to expand to 10. The facilities include an interventional radiology unit, which is rare in outpatient facilities, an extensive rehab area for orthopedic patients — sports injuries are common childhood challenges — and an ophthalmology department. Reflecting the scale of investment in the facility, it even has a teaching kitchen for families whose children have chronic gastroenterological illnesses, food allergies and sensitivities.
At Jan. 8’s official ribbon cutting, attended by hundreds of Children’s staff, building contractors, state and town officials and other guests, CEO Kevin Churchwell said, “We’re better able to deliver exceptional care right in your community, meeting families where they are with the expertise that we know, the trust and the compassion that they deserve. Thank you for welcoming us to the neighborhood. So it’s a great day to finally say, ‘Welcome to Boston Children’s Needham.’”
“Our satellite facilities are where about 40% of patient encounters take place,” said COO Dick Argys, who emceed the ribbon cutting. “That’s an enormous number. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of encounters that take place [each year]. So this is a huge part of the enterprise of Boston Children’s.” That’s especially true for surgery: Roughly 60% of all the hospital’s surgeries now take place in outpatient facilities. By the middle of this year, the staff will be seeing 6,000 pediatric patients every month.
The state’s Commissioner of Public Health, Robbie Goldstein, praised the effort of the hospital designers and staff. “And the location matters,” said Goldstein. “It’s right off of 128. It’s connected to the north, to the south, to the west. It makes a real difference for families who are juggling work and school and child care and everything else that comes with raising a healthy family. Convenience should not be a luxury in pediatric care.
“We are navigating a time of profound challenge in health care and in public health,” he said. “But today we get to celebrate a win. And this is a win for children, for families, and for communities.”
One of the wins is for local businesses. There will be a staff of several hundred new workers in Needham every day. The clinic does not have a restaurant or cafeteria, so French Press has been invited to sell its coffees and food items during certain hours. Other food vendors will bring what one physician described as “food truck-style” services into the building for later-day options.
Impressive building tour
A tour of the building revealed pristine waiting rooms, a vast array of new equipment from beds to medical devices to special iPhones for nursing staff and clinicians, and — behind the scenes — large, well-organized stockpiles of gloves, masks, tubes, medicines and all of the small items that go into advanced pediatric care.
Staff members were as excited about the things that don’t get noticed as those that do. Anesthesiologist Susie Eklund said the area that impressed her most was the huge sterile processing room, where every kind of item goes for cleaning after use. On a walk through the building, she noted where the touchless door openers had been placed at the staff’s recommendation, how well-organized the equipment areas were, and just how large and comfortable the building felt. Dr. Eklund approved of one last-minute change: during a three-day simulation that Children’s staff ran to test the building and its use, clinicians noticed that near the area that is kept sterile for surgery there was no place to bring one’s coffee before starting the day. The sterile area is marked by red lines on the floor, and the red lines were all across blank hallways. Now there’s a small area with chairs and counters just outside the sterile surgical corridor.
Allergy-friendly teaching kitchen
In an era of significant food allergies in children, food is a critical component of care for many patients. Due to demand, Children’s moved its entire gastroenterology department to Needham, allowing room for the first-of-its-kind teaching kitchen.
“It’s going to be really cool,” said Lisa Hogarty, senior vice president of real estate and development who helped scout the new location. “It’s almost like the Food Network. We’ve installed cameras so we will be able to do live streaming and online cooking lessons for families both in person and on the internet.”
The kitchen is designed primarily for GI patients, but any patient or family that wants to learn to cook with a focus on food sensitivities will be able to access the services. It is completely allergy focused and easily accessible from the lobby, making it easy for families to access, Hogarty said. The nutrition team also plans to partner with local restaurants. “We’re excited to pull in the community to really learn how to create delicious food that is safe for their children.”
Artwork eases anxieties
Engaging the broader community is something Children’s has done with all of its projects, most significantly by soliciting art from local artists. Hogarty said this is a key component in making their young patients feel at ease. “It’s very purposeful on our part because we know kids come to a building like this and they’re nervous and anxious, so we use art as a way to level their anxiety and in a way distract them, but really engage them in what a special place they are in and the special care they’re going to get, and the art reflects all of that.”
Each building has a theme for its artwork. In Needham, that theme is movement, chosen for both the natural movement of the nearby Charles River and the manmade movement of the highway. In the radiology department, each room has a mural depicting a portion of the trek along the Charles. “You can make your way to Boston through the radiology department,” said Hogarty. “The art is breathtaking in Needham.”
Situated between two highway on/off ramps with great visibility from Route 128, close to two hotels, and perfect land dimensions for the type of building they wanted — including “a parking garage you can see from space” — made the Needham plot the ideal location.
“It was a very beautiful day in April,” said Hogarty. “About 10 of us were on a shuttle bus, and we drove into the park and we said ‘this is it.’” The new hospital is convenient for both patients and staff, including those who come from out of town and may need to stay overnight.
This month the hospital will open at 25% of its projected capacity, but Hogarty said they anticipate being at 100% by May.
Children’s next project is a seven-year revamp of the Franciscan Children’s Hospital in Brighton slated to start this summer. It will expand the existing mental and behavioral health services — something not offered in Needham — as well as its long-term medical rehab facilities.
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