DANBURY, Conn. — Families with children in crisis will have access to a private pediatric treatment area tailored to meet the unique medical needs of young patients when Danbury Hospital, in Danbury, Conn., opens its state-of-the-art Emergency Department next spring. 
“This is a dream come true,” said Patrick Broderick, M.D., chairman of Emergency Medicine at Danbury Hospital. “The ability to treat children in a private and more controlled setting will allow us to provide kids and their families a more healing and nurturing environment.”
Helping to make the pediatric modernizations to the Emergency Department possible is a $1-million gift from Gregory D. Smith, chairman and chief executive officer of Maplewood Senior Living, which operates five assisted living and memory care residences in Connecticut, with a sixth opening in the fall of 2014.
“Danbury Hospital is an important regional resource for people of all ages, including its youngest residents,” said Smith, a board member of the Western Connecticut Health Network Foundation and the Network’s Planning Committee. The network includes Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital.
Children 18 and younger comprise about 20 percent of the 70,000 patient visits to Danbury Hospital’s Emergency Department each year. Youth arrive with issues ranging from fever, abdominal pain and respiratory problems to cuts, sprains, fractures and traumatic injuries. While every patient who comes to the Emergency Department receives high-quality care, treating children in an area away from the general public has been difficult because of cramped quarters and the high demand for services, explained Dr. Broderick. “We handle about 70,000 visits a year in a space designed to service 40,000 patients a year,” he said.
The new Emergency Department is part of the $150-million North Tower project that will add 300,000 square feet of new construction to Danbury Hospital’s existing campus. The project doubles the size of the Emergency Department to 40,000 square feet, increasing bed capacity from 40 examination areas to 69 private exam rooms to handle 88,000 visits per year.
Among the changes to pediatric care underway:
- A separate eight-bed pediatric suite within the Emergency Department with private rooms to diagnose and treat young patients from infancy to 18 years of age. The self-sufficient unit will have its own specialized staff, child-friendly waiting room, nursing station, medication distribution machines and nutrition center for families. The larger rooms will have space for parents, family members, strollers and more. Televisions, video games and other amenities will be on hand to distract children during their visit.
- The pediatric suite’s location adjacent to the main Emergency Department entrance will expedite care.
- Children who need an X-ray or CT will be able to stay in the emergency treatment area because the pediatric unit will be next to the Emergency Department’s Radiology Suite.
- Adolescents with behavior health issues will have private examination and counseling rooms.
- One of the four Emergency Department rooms specially designed to treat trauma and cardiac patients will be fully equipped to handle pediatric patients.
- The staff will include physicians, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, nurses and other healthcare professionals with specialized training, available round-the clock both in the Emergency Department and in the pediatric inpatient unit. Physician and nursing “pediatric champions” are developing evidence-based protocols for treating children.
Hospital officials are working with area pediatricians to coordinate care to keep children out of the Emergency Department whenever possible and facilitate a smooth admission process if their young patients need to be hospitalized. Children treated at the Emergency Department may receive follow-up care from community pediatricians and pediatric specialists, including the experts at Danbury Hospital’s Children’s Health and Wellness Center.
Children requiring inpatient services stay in the eight-bed pediatric unit, which offers 24-hour coverage with a team that includes pediatric mid-level providers. In addition, pediatricians with patients they know need to be hospitalized – to receive intravenous medicine, for example – can bypass the Emergency Department and contact the Pediatric Department to ease the admission.
In the coming months, hospital officials will continue fine-tuning the design of the pediatric quarters made possible by the generosity of donors such as Gregory D. Smith. An unnamed donor, who has already given $10 million to the WCHN, has challenged the WCHN Foundation to reach the $50-million fundraising goal for its Imagine Build Transform campaign. The donor will give another $20 million if that goal is achieved. The $1 million donated by Gregory D. Smith is a big step toward the foundation’s goal.
The Imagine Build Transform campaign is focusing on raising funds for a new Patient Tower, an expanded Emergency Department with Level II trauma designation and an advanced Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Danbury Hospital, as well as the Emergency Department at New Milford Hospital and the Network’s cutting edge Biomedical Research Institute.
