Move marks the opening of new children’s hospital in Buffalo

The delicate and successful transport of 125 inpatient mothers, children and infants from Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo (N.Y.) to the new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital marked the official opening of the new facility located on a medical campus in downtown Buffalo.

The new 400,000-square-foot hospital replaces a 125-year-old facility and aims to consolidate and rightsize care in a new setting. It was constructed and designed with children and families in mind by Boston-based architecture firm Shepley Bulfinch.

The bright colors, 360-degree views of the city and distinct Buffalo-inspired themes portrayed on each floor, designed to help families navigate the new space, give the new hospital a welcoming environment.

Collaborations and programming by local musicians and artists from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Burchfield Penney Art Gallery, Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin D. Martin House Complex among others aim to harness the power of the arts to provide patients and their families with a physical and emotional healing experience.

The $270 million project that resulted in the 12-floor, 185-bed facility serves as one of only 43 stand-alone children’s hospitals in the U.S. and the only stand-alone children’s hospital in New York State. Turner Construction Co. managed the construction.

Oishei Children’s Hospital serves as the regional center for comprehensive and state-of-the-art pediatric trauma, surgical and medical care, including neonatal, perinatal and obstetrical services.

The new hospital is an integral part of the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, an innovative and collaborative space in the heart of downtown Buffalo.

The hospital will benefit from proximity to Buffalo General Medical Center, Gates Vascular Institute, Roswell Park Cancer Institute and the new Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo.

Oishei Children’s is the access point for pediatric critical care as the region’s only Level I pediatric trauma center. It also serves as the largest neonatal intensive care unit in Western New York and the only Level III neonatal intensive care unit west of Syracuse.

The move to the hospital started early Nov. 10 as care providers, specialized pediatric and neonatal transport teams, along with the hospital’s partners at American Medical Response, began transporting patients individually by ambulance. All patients were transported the 1.2 miles to the new hospital in less than 12 hours.

One by one, patients were transported to their new rooms at Oishei Children’s Hospital accompanied by several prep and transport care providers. Receiving teams on each unit decorated patient rooms with balloons and streamers, even hosting their own individual ribbon-cutting ceremonies to make patients feel welcomed and more comfortable in their new space.

The new facility is named after industrialist and philanthropist John R. Oishei, a native of Buffalo, who is credited with inventing and manufacturing the windshield wiper at Trico Products Corp., Buffalo.

In other health care facility news:

• Renovations were completed at the former Fair Oaks Professional Building and Fair Oaks Medical Plaza, which was renamed the Patient Care Centers at Inova Fair Oaks, Fairfax, Va.

  Seavest Healthcare Properties LLC in White Plains, N.Y., invested more than $1.7 million into the renovations, which include improvements to the lobbies, restrooms and common areas, upgrades to the mechanical systems as well as finishing a newly renovated clinical time-share suite.

• Groundbreaking was held recently for three buildings totaling 174,778 square feet on an 18.81-acre outpatient campus adjacent to the Summit Healthcare Regional Medical Center in Show Low, Ariz., about 180 miles northeast of Phoenix.

  The project consists of the three-story Summit Healthcare Outpatient Pavilion, 103,866 square feet; one-story Summit Healthcare Outpatient Surgery Center, 16,213 square feet; and one-story Summit Healthcare Auxiliary Building, 54,699 square feet.

• Groundbreaking was held at the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine and Heart Institute in downtown Tampa, to mark construction of a new 13-story, 395,000-square-foot high-rise.

  Health care research and other functions related to improving patient outcomes will be conducted in the new facility. The project team will include Hammes Co. as the project manager and HOK/Skanska as the design/build team.

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