Jackson South Community Hospital Opens New Medical Tower

MIAMI – Jackson South Community Hospital welcomed the Miami-Dade community, civic leaders and religious organizations to the grand opening of its new, spacious, state-of-art Jackson South tower building and new hospital entrance. The renovation and expansion of the hospital will enable Jackson to better meet the needs of the growing community in south Miami-Dade.

The new tower features 48 new private patient rooms with large windows, some with a golf course view, and three handicapped-accessible rooms on each floor; 12 intensive care unit suites with patient lifts for lifting and turning patients; three endoscopy rooms, 25 individual recovery rooms and two cardiac catheterization labs. It also holds eight new totally interactive, integrated operating rooms, which will allow the staff to broadcast procedures and communicate with doctors and hospitals via the internet anywhere worldwide. The operating rooms also feature boom technology (wires, connections and operating room consoles are attached from the ceiling to provide a greater space for the staff to care for patients).

The tower also offers a modern, high-tech pharmacy showcasing IV rooms with positive and negative pressure air flows for antibiotic and chemotherapy pharmaceuticals. At the new entrance to Jackson South, patients, family and visitors will be welcomed to a spacious family-friendly waiting area with granite-covered registration desks, a landscaped garden view and geometric-designed glass walls and vaulted ceilings to allow sunshine to illuminate the room. A coffee kiosk will offer refreshments.

The new building was designed as part of the Miami-Dade Art in Public Places program. Local artist Leonel Matheu designed the building around an Everglades theme with different floors reflecting grass, water and flowers. Blades of grass images cover the first floor; blue water highlights the second; and sun flowers brighten the third.

The tower expansion project at Jackson South added 167,000 square feet to the existing hospital, doubling its size. The $102 million project was funded by a Miami-Dade County General Obligation Bond passed by voters in 2005.

This opening comes just three months after the grand opening of the new Jackson South emergency room in November. The 22-bed emergency room construction increased the size of the unit, making it better equipped to meet the expanding healthcare needs of the south Miami-Dade residents.
Dr. Eneida Roldan, president and CEO of Jackson Health System, said, “Jackson South’s new tower expansion shows our ongoing commitment to provide world-class medical care to the growing south Miami-Dade population.”

Jackson South Community Hospital is a 199-bed acute-care hospital located in south Miami-Dade County. As part of the Jackson Health System, Jackson South is a community hospital specializing in a wide range of healthcare services to meet the needs of the south Miami-Dade residents. The hospital is staffed by nationally respected, board-certified physicians and healthcare professionals who practice a wide array of specialties and subspecialties including digestive health, emergency services, gastric sleeve surgery, maxillofacial surgery, urology, women health’s, orthopaedic and sports medicine, radiation oncology, general and laparoscopic surgery and wound care. For more information, please visit www.JacksonSouth.org.

Photo credit: Steven Brooke Studios