Navicent Health, Georgia Community Celebrate New Children’s Hospital

The central and south Georgia region’s pediatric patients and their families now have access to the new Beverly Knight Olson Children’s Hospital, Navicent Health, located in Macon.

Since 1987, the nonprofit Beverly Knight Olson Children’s Hospital, Navicent Health has been committed to enhancing the lives of children through excellence in patient care, research and education. The only dedicated pediatric facility in central Georgia, and one of the most comprehensive in the state, it provides care in general pediatrics, pediatric critical care, neonatal intensive care and outpatient services. The hospital also serves as the primary teaching site for the Department of Pediatrics at the Mercer University School of Medicine.

Due to a growing demand for additional service options, the hospital had outgrown its facility, constructed in 1962 and designed for adult healthcare. Beverly Knight Olson Children’s Hospital has been constructed adjacent to the existing facility, expanding the hospital’s size by 100,000 square feet, providing a total of 160,000 square feet dedicated to pediatric care.

The first floor of the five-story addition includes a new emergency center and imaging center. The second floor holds general pediatric unit, with the third floor used for inpatient and outpatient surgical and procedural services. Floors four and five house the new 66 bed neonatal intensive care unit, with renovated pediatric critical care unit spaces on the hospital’s existing fourth floor.

The project has been designed with the option to add additional floors in the future to further allow for the expansion of services in a hospital designed to meet the specific needs of ill and injured children.

More information:

• 66 neonatal intensive care beds
• 21 pediatric critical care beds
• 4 pediatric operating rooms
• 23 general pediatric beds
• New technologies, including a fleet of pediatric remote control transport cars to allow children to “drive” themselves to procedures
• Only pediatric imaging center in central and south Georgia
• Outpatient services including infusions for patients with cancer and sickle cell anemia

Robins & Morton served as general contractor on the project, with HKS, Inc. providing architectural services.