Children’s North Campus to expand 4X

BROOMFIELD — More than a decade ago, Children’s Hospital Colorado resolved to expand its Front Range presence by opening new facilities in communities outside the metro Denver area. Apparently, the non-profit hospital, a mainstay in Colorado from more than a century, wasn’t overestimating its reception.

“Back in 2007, or 2008, one of our key initiatives was an expansion into other areas. We wanted to push our front door out into other communities,” said Suzy Jaeger, senior vice president and chief patient experience and access officer at Children’s Colorado. “We’ve been doing that with a fair amount of success since then.”

Which may be a bit of an understatement, as Children’s Colorado expansion in this century has been rather epic, and will now include a major expansion of Children’s Colorado North Campus, near U.S. Interstate 25 and Colorado Highway 7, a mere decade after its opening. Originally opened in 2008, the North Campus will be quadrupled in size to include emergency care, inpatient and observation care, sleep studies, operating room services, specialty clinics, an imaging center and a diagnostic unit.

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“We fulfilled our projected five-year growth in the first 18 months,” said Jaeger about the demand for services at the North Campus. In 2017, alone, there were 24,000 specialty clinic visits and 35,000 urgent care visits to this location.

That initial growth spurt also took place during recessionary times. The other outlets and retail establishments in the development, near the northwest corner of the intersection, have only recently been built.

“It was a big deal when the Wendy’s opened,” Jaeger said.

The new 200,000 square-foot facility expansion not only adds an emergency department, it allows the Campus to offer a “Dual Track” model, allowing clinical team members to triage patients into the emergency or urgent care they need. Jaeger said that combination will help save parents from having to make the call on what degree of care their child needs, as well as potentially save them money by not overestimating their care needs. The same Dual Track care will also be available at Children’s Colorado new 280,000-square foot, 110-bed hospital in Colorado Springs, which also saw a ground breaking this year.

And of course, Children’s Colorado opened its new main hospital in 2017, adjacent to the University of Colorado Hospital and the University of Colorado School of Medicine at the juncture of I-225 and East Colfax Avenue. The 1.79 million square-feet hospital includes more than 400 beds and advanced medical equipment specially designed for children.

At the North Campus an expansion from six to 16 hospital beds is a welcome addition, as previously patients were not allowed to stay more than 72 hours. The expansion will see the North Campus licensed as a hospital without restrictions to admittance.

Urgent care has certainly been a mainstay for the North Campus, given its proximity to some of the more affordable family homes near Broomfield, Longmont, Thornton and the Carbon Valley municipalities. However, Jaeger said that the specialty care clinics draw patients from as far north as Cheyenne.

“Certainly the expertise of our staff is a big part of that success. What they do all day long, every day, is take care of children. They are more attuned to their medical needs,” she said. “We certainly work hard to provide a good experience for not only the patient, but also the parents.”

Children’s Colorado therapy facility at Arista also has room for expansion, although there are no current plans on the board. All-in-all, the hospital has 17 different locations, stretching from Broomfield to Pueblo, but in fact the influence of the hospital is far greater than the sum of its facilities.

For instance, Children’s Colorado has a big presence in Boulder Community Health’s Foothills Hospital Pediatric Center. Children’s Colorado, of course, is a resource for nearly every family doctor in the state.

“We work in close partnership with private physicians across the community, especially if they need specialty clinic care, emergency care or diagnostics,” Jaeger said. “We are a resource for primary care physicians.”

As of now, Children’s Colorado has no immediate plans to build facilities farther north in Colorado, but Jaeger noted, “never say never.

“We certainly expect patients in Fort Collins and Greeley are coming in for specialty care to the North Campus,” she said.