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EDIMBURG — Two and a half years after construction broke, and after what seemed like an eternity to residents who had been waiting for a children's hospital that wouldn't require them to drive out of the Rio Grande Valley for certain treatments, Driscoll… We are currently making many preparations and preparing to open here in May.
Matt Walthoff, president of Driscoll Children's Hospital in the Rio Grande Valley, gave The Monitor a tour of the new facility Thursday, showing journalists some of the technology and state-of-the-art equipment available to staff and patients. , some are not, he said. It is also available at Corpus Christi Hospital, which Valley residents once had to travel to.
construction of the hospital has begun Work on the $105 million project is scheduled to open to the public on November 16, 2021, and open to the public on May 1, split between $55 million from DHR Health and $50 million from Driscoll. is completed.
A tour of the hospital's eight floors will give you a good idea of where that investment went.
8th Floor
When I got off the elevator and went up to the top floor, the starting point of the tour, I felt a sense of tranquility as sunlight streamed in through the large windows on the right side of the elevator. Walthoff wants to emulate that peaceful atmosphere throughout the hospital, with windows taking up much of the interior and letting in natural light.
Windows near the elevator offer a bird's-eye view of Edinburg and the nearby McAllen area, as well as the sky bridge that connects Driscoll Hospital and the Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at DHR Health Women's Center. I was able to.
Before entering the patient area on the 8th floor, to the left of the entrance is a hallway dedicated to Driscoll's pediatric training program. The program is the first of its kind in the area and hopes to launch in the summer of 2026, Wohlhoff said. This area includes sleeping rooms and meeting rooms for residents.
“We will be implementing the first pediatric training program in the Valley,” Walthoff said. “We will have our first residents trained here within two years of opening.”
When you enter the main floor entrance, you will see the nursing desk on the left.
The floor, Walthoff described, has a standard 16-bed layout and is equipped with digital door signs to help keep staff informed of patient and room status.
“If the patient is in any type of isolation, all infection precautions are in place and nursing staff are required to wear gowns before admission, all of that can be posted here.” added Walthoff. You can also update the room status after the patient is discharged.
In the son's wise words, each patient room has an even “cooler” device known as a digital whiteboard.
Rather than using a traditional whiteboard on which nurses write the day's information, digital whiteboards include electronic medical boards that allow physicians to view electronic medical records, such as images.
“We have a full computer, but it also has writing capabilities, and it's all touchscreen,” Walthoff said.
The rest of the room looks like a traditional hospital room, with a monitor, a pull-out sofa for the family, a bathroom, and a flat-screen TV.
At the end of the hall, to the right, is a playroom where child life professionals can help reduce the stress and anxiety that children experience during their stay in the hospital.
“When a child is donating blood or any procedure that is uncomfortable for the child, a child life specialist comes in and distracts the child, plays with him, and engages the child in the experience. We can calm things down a little bit more. Our staff needs to do their jobs and take care of them,” Walthoff said.
The play area includes games and other items for children to interact with during their stay.
In addition to specialists, the hospital also has a facility dog named Tesla, a golden retriever, who works with the child life department.
He explained that the 8th, 7th and 4th floors are all pediatric 16-bed units.
6th floor
While waiting for the elevator to go up to the sixth floor, Walthoff explained how the “Day in the Life” rooms throughout the hospital work.
On April 3, during a “Day in the Life” scenario, we conducted a dry run of 27 scenarios that we expected to occur on a typical day at the hospital.
As we walked through the halls leading up to the sixth floor, Walthoff explained that one of his priorities was language accessibility. They have a device called Language Line, a cart that helps with translations between different languages.
“No matter where people come from or what nationality they come from, we can use that cart to translate different languages,” Walthoff said.
He mentioned Spanish, adding that the hospital is seeking to have all of its bilingual staff, who make up about 95% of its staff, become certified medical translators.
“When it comes to medical terminology, you need a translator with good knowledge of how to translate that particular term,” Walthoff said, adding that there is a six-week course for certification.
When you enter the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit on the 6th floor here, the nursing desk is immediately to the left as you enter the door, and the ICU rooms are spread out on both sides of the hallway.
The ICU has eight beds, and each room is equipped with equipment to connect medical booms, monitors and other technology needed by nurses.
The boom allows patients to move around the room while remaining connected to the equipment they need.
The bed also allows nurses to easily transport patients.
Due to the extended stay in the ICU, there is a sofa in the corner of the room that is larger than in a normal hospital room.
Walthoff explained that there is room on the fifth floor to expand the ICU by adding 10 beds that will serve as step-down rooms. He added that the contractor drilled the pipes in preparation for the eventual expansion.
As we made our way to the elevator, Mr. Walthoff pointed toward the waiting room. It is a place where patients' families can take a break from the intensive care unit, wash their clothes using the on-site washer and dryer, and use the bathroom to refresh themselves.
2nd and 3rd floor
As you ascend to the third floor, also known as the day surgery floor, the check-in desk will be on your right.
There is a window to the left of the pharmacy desk, which takes up most of the third floor. In addition to stocking necessary medicines, the pharmacy will also have a “clean room” used for chemotherapy.
To the far right is the entrance to the day surgery area, which has 16 separate bays for surgical preparation and procedures.
Walthoff explained that the anesthesia team currently working at Rio Grande Regional Hospital in McAllen will also be working with Driscoll. The team consists of nine board-certified pediatric anesthesiologists.
As we waited for the elevator to descend to the second floor, Walthoff explained that on the day the hospital opens, all pediatric patients at DHR Health will be transferred to Driscoll, and all NICU patient information will be transferred to the Driscoll system. Did.
“As part of this deal, we acquired the pediatric service line from DHR, so everything will be handed over to us from day one because DHR will no longer be providing pediatric care,” Walthoff said.
On the second floor, which is the same as the day surgery, there is a check-in station on the right and a waiting room with a large window overlooking the DHR Labor and Delivery Wing.
To the left was the entrance to the operating room recovery area, or surgical floor.
Passing through the entrance are the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) bays, where patients recover from surgery. There are a total of 16 PACU bays, all but one open. To the right of the recovery area is an isolation room for infectious disease patients.
There are eight operating rooms at the back of the floor that can perform a variety of procedures, from dental, ear, nose and throat, general surgery, trauma to orthopedics.
Seven of the rooms are standard-sized ORs with bright white lights and various medical booms for ease of movement.
“We brought in a surgical team from Corpus, and they were just blown away. They were so impressed with these rooms. I think they're going to request all this equipment.” Walthoff said jokingly.
He explained that the video equipment is state-of-the-art technology from a company called Storz Medical that allows surgeons to guide the surgery.
At the end of the hall is the 8th operating room, which is larger than a normal operating room because it is used for surgeries that require medical staff such as orthopedics.
1st floor
On the way to the elevator, Walthoff explained that the second floor was the one with the skybridge leading to the DHR Health Women's Center.
As you exit the elevator to the first floor, you will see the main entrance area, gift shop, admissions desk, and waiting area on your right.
To the left of the elevator is a hallway that leads to the radiation area where patients undergo CT and MRI scans.
According to Waltoff, the CT machine has 560 slices.
“Our radiology staff often says that a single breath of the baby is enough to complete a complete CT scan,” added Walthoff. “Children have a hard time staying still, so we need a faster CT.”
Still under construction, the next room will have an MRI machine in the center and a television in the back for patient comfort.
He said some of the more specialized and sophisticated materials, such as shielding within the walls and MRIs with their own coolers to keep them cool as MRIs generate a lot of heat, will help build the MRI room. He added that it took more time.
There is a door to the emergency room on the right side of the hallway.
“It's important to have diagnostic imaging and radiology next to the ER to increase efficiency,” says Walthoff.
When you go through the door, there is an 8-bed ER, with a narrow hallway extending to the left and right, and an ambulance entrance in the center.
“We recognize that eight beds is not enough for the capacity we envision, but we do have the ability to basically close the curtains,” Walthoff said. “If we get into a situation where we have a surge of patients, we can put a curtain in the middle and have eight or more patients in here.”
Each ER room is equipped with carts, supplies and blood storage needed for emergency care.
Walthoff explained that it also has a pneumatic tube system that travels beneath McCall and transports laboratory specimens directly to their respective laboratories.
He hopes the ER eventually earns a Level III trauma designation.
“This is just a starting point. We will continue to expand our services and continue to hire pediatric specialists,” Walthoff said. “We want to build a complete team of pediatric specialists who live and work here in the Valley.”
As of Thursday, Walthoff said staffing is about 90% complete, but the company is open as scheduled regardless of the limited availability.
The hospital is scheduled to open May 1, but Waltoff plans to host a ribbon cutting for the hospital in June or July.
“We want it to be more like a festival…like a block party,” Walthoff said with a smile.
Driscoll Children's Hospital Rio Grande Valley is located at 2820 W. Michelangelo Drive in Edinburg.
