Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota Opens New Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Minneapolis Campus

New Facility Features Private Rooms to Enhance Safety, Privacy and Healing

MINNEAPOLIS and ST. PAUL, Minn., Dec. 2 — Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota is opening a new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Minneapolis on Dec. 2. The expanded 25,000 square foot NICU offers nearly all private patient rooms with expanded secluded family space.


The new space will allow for increased privacy and decreased stress for families during a particularly difficult time. The environment is designed to support family-centered care and developmental care techniques that improve patient outcomes. The enhancements include a comfortable sleeping area for parents, dimming lights, sliding glass doors, and soundproof ceilings. These enhancements allow the infant to sleep better and grow faster, so they can leave the hospital sooner.

“Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota has shown a commitment to neonatal services since 1965, when we opened one of the first neonatal intensive care units in the region,” said David Brasel, MD, Medical Director of the Neonatal Program at Children’s – Minneapolis. “Our NICU staff cares for some of the most fragile babies and the new NICU ultimately matches our facilities to our state-of-the-art care and will give more privacy to the patient and family.”

The new NICU design also incorporates enhancements to help Children’s neonatal staff care for critically ill babies. The private rooms are large enough to accommodate any extra equipment needed for specialized care, which allows neonatologists and nurses to care for the babies without moving them from the room. The NICU has an advanced communication system that allows neonatologists and nurses to monitor babies via cell phones when not in the room. It also features a designated transport room so when needed, Children’s can transport infants to and from any location in the five-state region.

Children’s has the largest high-risk neonatal referral center in the region and is the fourth largest neonatal program in the U.S. with more than 1,900 admissions per year. Children’s – Minneapolis NICU is the largest high-risk neonatal referral center in the region and has some of the highest survival rates in the nation. In 2009, U.S. News and World Report recognized Children’s as a national leader in neonatal care.

Opening the new NICU at Children’s marks the completion of another stage in Children’s multi-year $300 million expansion, which launched in 2007 on both the Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses. Children’s also opened a new five-story Children’s Specialty Center in June and a state-of-the-art Emergency Department in October.

About Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota:
Serving as Minnesota’s children’s hospital since 1924, Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota is the seventh -largest pediatric health care organization in the United States, with 332 staffed beds at its two hospitals in St. Paul and Minneapolis. An independent, not-for-profit health care system, Children’s of Minnesota provides care through more than 14,000 inpatient visits and more than 200,000 emergency room and other outpatient visits every year. Children’s is the only Minnesota hospital system to provide comprehensive care exclusively to children and in 2009, U.S. News and World Report recognized Children’s as a national leader in neonatal care.

SOURCE Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota

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Posted December 2, 2009

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