Ten years after leaders at Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt announced the Growing to New Heights Campaign to add a four-floor, 160,000-square-foot expansion atop the existing hospital building, the last and final floor — the 12th floor — is complete. The 12th floor was one of two floors initially shelled for future need due to the region’s growth.
Patients moved onto the new 38-bed, 40,000-square-foot floor Feb. 24.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate this achievement, as we open the last and final floor of our hospital on the Main Campus, and the success of our Growing to New Heights Campaign,” said Meg Rush, MD, MMHC, President of Monroe Carell. “The realized four-floor expansion is a testament to our community’s unwavering commitment to the health and well-being of children. Together, we’ve created a place of hope and healing where every child can receive the health care they need and deserve, and where every family can find comfort and support through patient- and family-centered care.
“With this new floor, we reaffirm our pledge to excellence in children’s health care, ensuring that every child has access to state-of-the-art medical services and compassionate care. It is truly a privilege to care for children.”
Monroe Carell — Middle Tennessee’s only freestanding children’s hospital as well as the region’s only comprehensive, nonprofit pediatric health care provider — now has a footprint of more than 1 million square feet and 363 beds, making it the largest pediatric hospital in Tennessee.
“Completion of the expansion of Monroe Carell has been possible through the generous support of the Carell family and many others who care deeply about the children and families we serve. Thanks to such outstanding partnerships we are ready to meet the needs of our most vulnerable patients well into the future,” said Jeff Balser, MD, PhD, President and CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
The new floor is divided into three areas. In the coming months, it will include additional neonatal intensive care beds and medical/surgical care beds that allow care teams to cohort children with behavioral health needs in specially designed inpatient rooms.
As on other expansion floors, each room allows for rooming-in options for families seeking overnight accommodations. Other floor features include an infant playroom, multiple lactation rooms, work rooms for care teams and more.
Initially, 23 beds will be used to serve children with cancer who need inpatient care as the hospital renovates the cancer unit and rooms on the sixth floor of Monroe Carell.
“The additional space in Monroe Carell will play a critical role in our health system’s mission to keep pace with Middle Tennessee’s explosive growth, allowing us to serve thousands of additional patients and families each year,” said C. Wright Pinson, MBA, MD, Deputy CEO and Chief Health System Officer for VUMC. “We are grateful for the involvement and support of so many wonderful people who helped make these new floors a reality.”
In October, the hospital also opened its new 14th floor. Initially, the 38-bed floor is occupied by adults with low-acuity medical/surgical care needs from Vanderbilt University Hospital and is used to alleviate significant demand for inpatient beds while the adult hospital constructs the new Jim Ayers Tower on the Main Campus. All rooms on the 14th floor were built with intensive care unit capability should Monroe Carell need additional critical care capacity in the future.
The tremendous population growth across Middle Tennessee has meant continued, increased demand for pediatric health care services as more families move to the area.
From the initial opening of the 206-bed hospital in 2004, an expansion in 2012 and to the current four-floor project, Monroe Carell beds have been full almost as quickly as they have opened. More than 1,800 children are cared for daily in clinical and hospital spaces, both on and off campus.
Foresight from the engineers who constructed the original building made it possible for Monroe Carell’s four-floor expansion to be built on top of the existing facility. No further vertical expansions to the existing building are feasible.
To support the building’s current expansion, Monroe Carell launched the Growing to New Heights Campaign in 2014, a $40 million philanthropic effort that exceeded its fundraising goal. The cornerstone of the campaign was a leadership gift from Julie Carell Stadler, Kathryn Carell Brown, Edie Carell Johnson and their families. They are the daughters of the building’s namesake, Monroe Carell Jr., and Ann Scott Carell.
In honor of their mother, the Ann Scott Carell Pavilion spans each of the expansion floors.
“It’s an incredible, full-circle moment to see the final floor of the expansion now open to care for even more of our region’s children and families,” said Kathryn Carell Brown, who served as chair of the Growing to New Heights Campaign. “My sisters, Julie and Edie, and I know our parents would be thrilled to see the continued growth of Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. On behalf of the Carell family, it’s been an honor to carry on their legacy and join with the community to make this expansion possible and help more patients.”
