innovative health care model will reinvent the path to children’s health care for families in our region and beyond

Dayton Children’s officially opens The Child Health Pavilion on Monday, May 20, 2019, reinventing the path to children’s health care for families in our region and beyond. This new space will support a truly unique, integrative model of pediatric primary care excellence unlike anything seen across the country.

The new and innovative care model integrates a primary care medical home, behavioral health and specialty clinical services for vulnerable populations (children in foster/kinship care, children with medical complexities, children with weight issues) alongside community-based programs to address the social determinants of health such as food insecurity, housing instability, durable goods and educational resources for children.

Despite having some of the best children’s hospitals in the country, the state of children’s health in Ohio is devastatingly low. Why? Because research shows the majority of a child’s health is determined by factors outside of health care.

”We cannot achieve our mission of optimal health for every child without addressing the struggles they face every day, like lack of food, substandard housing or even having the right school supplies,” says Deborah A. Feldman, president and CEO of Dayton Children’s Hospital. ”We envisioned The Child Health Pavilion as a place to not only elevate what happens in the doctor’s office but to bridge the gap to accessing the social services that will help our children be healthier, today and into adulthood.”

A few of the unique components built into the Child Health Pavilion in addition to the innovative primary care medical home include:

• A teaching kitchen where families can learn and practice preparing nutritious and tasty recipes
• The Food Pharm where, in partnership with the Dayton Foodbank, families in need can get emergency boxes of nutritious food.
• The Family Resource Connection where advocates connect families with an identified social need to the appropriate community resources, including food, housing, transportation, after-school care or baby supplies.

None of the work at The Child Health Pavilion could be done without collaboration and partnership with local, state and even national organizations and agencies. No one group could bring about the level of change necessary to truly impact the course of our children’s overall health. “We are incredibly fortunate to be blessed with a community that is rallying around our children and a Governor who has made children a key priority of his agenda,” says Feldman.

“Ensuring all of Ohio’s children are able to grow up in a healthy and safe environment so they have the opportunity to live up to their full potential is one of my top priorities,” said Ohio Governor Mike DeWine. “This new facility offers the Dayton-area’s most vulnerable children one place to access comprehensive medical care and a variety of community services. I am pleased that Ohio’s First Lady was able to attend the official opening of The Child Health Pavilion at Dayton Children’s, as we work to improve health and wellness for all of Ohio’s children.”

Hospital’s gift to the children of the community unveiled

Dayton Children’s officially opens the new patient tower on June 5, 2017 with a special event revealing the hospital’s gift to the children of the Dayton area.

In the middle of the hospital’s main campus on Valley Street, the new 260,000-square-foot, eight-story patient tower rises above the existing hospital.  “Each space inside the new patient care tower was created to embody Dayton Children’s unique patient care mission and to facilitate the delivery of world-class pediatric care,” says Deborah Feldman, president and CEO. “Patients, families, physicians and staff all gave input to create an operationally efficient, supportive environment that includes a flexible and innovative technology infrastructure.”

The design theme of the tower is “things that fly” to honor Dayton’s rich aviation heritage and innovation in flight.  Visitors will notice themed elements the moment they cross the family-friendly lobby into the three-story atrium called the Take Flight Gallery.  Filled with light, color and whimsy, this space houses the Culinairy Kitchen full service cafeteria, the Up Cafe for grab-and-go food items and the Altitude gift shop.  Visitors will also notice the main design feature in the Take Flight Gallery is the Dragonflyer.

The Dragonflyer is a specially commissioned piece of art that is a play space for children as well as a place to imagine all the possibilities.  She began with an idea – an idea as big and bold as the blue sky above.  An idea to mash-up what is and what could be, only limited by the imagination of children. She combines the beauty of a dragonfly that skims over the green fields of Huffman Prairie and the daring spirit that launched two Daytonians on wings of canvas and wood from the very same spot.

While Dayton Children’s serves this community’s children, those children also provide the inspiration to soar higher, think bigger, dream fearlessly and hope that every heartbeat will bring an innovation to make life better.  So the Dragonflyer is a gift to them for supplying that vision. 

The new design also feature a children’s garden with a fountain on the ground level, as well as a rooftop garden with a mosaic created by Dayton Children’s patients, staff and partners. To make it easy for families to find their way, each floor has a designated number, color and playful icon, selected from things that fly, both man-made and those found in nature, such as hummingbirds or hot air balloons.

Key design elements of the new patient tower include:

• Continuity of care – The new Comprehensive Cancer and Blood Disorders Center is a combined inpatient and outpatient unit and includes a pharmacy, infusion rooms for chemotherapy and an enhanced patient experience with dedicated child life specialists, indoor/outdoor play spaces, multiple space for family/patient interaction and a teen room.
• Better outcomes – The Newborn Intensive Care Unit further enhances the commitment to family-centered and developmentally-sensitive care through single-family room design which has been proven to increase skin-to-skin contact, enhance success rates of breastfeeding, further reduce infection and noise, and increase privacy – ultimately creating better outcomes for the region’s most fragile babies. The new NICU also has a dedicated milk lab.
• Critical care technology – The critical care complex is a custom designed space to maximize efficiency and patient safety, while also providing more space for technology and family comfort for our most critically-ill and injured children in the pediatric intensive care unit and technology-dependent patients in our transitional care unit.
• Optimal healing environment: Patients requiring an overnight stay will benefit from the enhanced general pediatrics inpatient unit which will feature larger single-family rooms, improved technology and upgraded family amenities.

Local investment

While Dayton Children’s built a new patient tower, it was also important to build our community at the same time.  Local firms Danis Construction and Champlin Architecture worked with national architecture firm FKP which specializes in building children’s hospitals. Spending on this project to date is 83 percent local with more than $101 million injected into the local economy and 506 people on the construction staff so far.

Community support

But as always, this would not be possible without the unwavering support of the community.   The goal of the Reaching New Heights capital campaign was $25 million and as Dayton Children’s officially opens the front doors of the patient tower, the community has graciously donated more than $27 million to the effort.  As a thank you to our generous and gracious community, the west side of the Take Flight Gallery showcases a beautiful donor wall that lists all those who contributed to the capital campaign. 

“There are miracles happening here at Dayton Children’s and we need to get behind that effort,” said Javan Conley.  Conley’s son, Ethan, was treated at Dayton Children’s and is the only person in the world to have survived a severe rare muscle virus.  “I look at my son as a miracle because he should be standing here today, but by the grace of God and the staff here at Dayton Children’s, he is. After seeing these new spaces today, I look forward to the future miracles that I know will happen here – it’s truly beautiful.”

“Anything is possible,” says Feldman.  “That is what we believe and that is what we want every family who comes through the doors of Dayton Children’s to believe.  So as we reach one ending, a new beginning takes shape. We will keep our hopes and aspirations for our children and their families, always above the clouds, always reaching for the stars to ensure that the kids of the Dayton region have world class pediatric health care close to home. We could not be more excited to share this wonderful new patient tower. It is our gift to the children and families of Dayton demonstrating them that this is a community that puts kids first.”

Community celebration

Dayton Children’s invites the community to an open house in the patient tower on Sunday, June 11, 2017 from 1:00 pm to 4:00 pm.  Everyone is welcome to see the amazing spaces and hear the inspiring stories here.  They will also see how the hospital is partnering with community agencies to improve life for children even if they never set foot inside the hospital walls.

Dayton Children’s Medical Center joins CliniSync

Dayton Children’s is the first stand-alone children’s hospital in Ohio to join CliniSync – Ohio’s statewide health information exchange.

This significant step into the future of health care means that pediatricians, physicians and others involved in the care of the region’s children will be able to electronically exchange medical information about their patients with one another.

Dan Paoletti, chief executive officer of the Ohio Health Information Partnership that oversees CliniSync says, “Dayton Children’s is leading the way in the pediatric market to help us achieve the goal of interoperability and connectivity on behalf of the children in the state.”

Dr. Gregg Alexander, a pediatrician and board member of the Ohio Health Information Partnership, adds, “By being the first children’s hospital in Ohio to connect across the entire state via CliniSync, Dayton Children’s should be commended for showing true vision and a strong commitment to advancing child healthcare quality.”

Dayton Children’s Chief Information Office Beth Fredette says the hospital is proud to be the first pediatric medical center to embrace this innovative health information technology.

“Connectivity and access to information are key strategic priorities for us,” Fredette says. “For the safety and care of all our children, we need to make sure every provider has complete and accurate information available to them at any point in the care process.  CliniSync will be key to making all of that happen.”

Dayton Children’s serves children in a 20-county region that includes Ohio and eastern Indiana. This nonprofit, 155-bed regional pediatric referral center is the only facility in the area devoted to the health, safety and information needs of children and their families.  It employs 350 physicians, including primary care pediatricians as well as subspecialists in more than 35 areas of pediatric medicine. In total, 1300 employees and volunteers work toward quality care for children and their families.

The medical center joins 56 other hospitals in Ohio that have committed to be part of the CliniSync community, including Premier Health Partners and Kettering Health Network in Dayton.

The electronic exchange of a patient’s lab results or tests reduces faxing, phone calls and other lags in care that occur because it takes so much time to communicate that information.  In addition, patients will not have to go through duplicate tests and procedures already conducted by another physician, saving time and money. 

And finally, patients with several doctors will now receive coordinated care because the health information network ultimately will allow physicians, hospitals, urgent care centers, clinics, labs and other healthcare entities to share information about a patient. This will eventually include patients who are in long-term care facilities.

The partnership also has signed up 6,504 Ohio physicians and healthcare professionals for the switch from paper records to electronic health records or to upgrade their existing systems. A free software package offered through CliniSync also allows physicians and clinicians to electronically send encrypted email messages, coordinate referrals with one another and get hospital and lab results directly to their practices.

To learn more about CliniSync, go to www.CliniSync.org

About the Ohio Health Information Partnership

The Ohio Health Information Partnership is a nonprofit, state-designated entity responsible for establishing regional extension centers to assist physicians and hospitals with information technology and for creating the infrastructure for a health information exchange in the state.

Ohiohas received $44,804,517 in federal funding through two federal grants that rigidly prescribe who can receive funding and how it is to be used. The HIE grant of $14,872,199 is for The Partnership to create a technological infrastructure (CliniSync) that will allow hospitals, physicians, clinicians, laboratories and others involved in a patient’s care to communicate electronically and share patient data.

The second grant includes $29,374,318 for regional extension centers (RECs) and $558,000 for 31 critical access and rural hospitals (CAHs). These seven regional extension centers assist primary care physicians and CAHs in the adoption of electronic health records and the achievement of “meaningful use” federal requirements that, in turn, allow physicians to receive Medicare or Medicaid incentive funds for using electronic health records.

The state of Ohio contributed $8 million when The Partnership first formed to help meet the match requirements of the federal grants. The Partnership includes the Ohio State Medical Association, Ohio Osteopathic Association, Ohio Hospital Association, BioOhio and the State of Ohio. The Partnership is funded through the Office of the National Coordinator, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, grant numbers 90RC0012 and 90HT0024. More information can be found at  the Ohio Health Information Partnership website at www.clinisync.org.

For more information, contact:

• Dottie Howe
• Director of Communications
• Ohio Health Information Partnership
• 614-664-2605
• dhowe@ohiponline.org