Hard Hats and Health Care
Children’s Hospital Expansion
With a population explosion impacting Nashville and surrounding communities, serving the health care needs of the region’s families and children means that Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt has been on the rise — literally.
Following completion of construction on the first of four new floors, patients were moved into the new 10th floor, 40,000-square-foot Pediatric Heart Institute in June, after a nearly three-year, $150 million construction project. A second floor of the new expansion is slated to open later this year.
To support the building’s expansion, Children’s Hospital launched the Growing to New Heights Campaign in 2014, a $40 million philanthropic effort that exceeded its fundraising goal. The cornerstone of the campaign was a $10 million gift from Kathryn Carell Brown, Julie Carell Stadler, Edie Carell Johnson and their families. They are the daughters of the building’s namesake, Monroe Carell Jr., and Ann Scott Carell. Brown served as campaign chair for the Growing to News Heights Campaign.
VUMC Purchases Hospital in Wilson County
In March, leaders of Vanderbilt University Medical Center announced plans to purchase Tennova Healthcare-Lebanon, a two-campus facility licensed for 245 beds, from subsidiaries of Community Health Systems, Inc. (CHS). A definitive agreement was signed for the sale of the Wilson County facility and related businesses, including physician clinic operations and outpatient services, to VUMC. The transaction closed Aug. 1, and the hospital was renamed Vanderbilt Wilson County Hospital. The hospital is currently staffed by more than 200 community physicians and employs approximately 600 administrators, nurses and support personnel offering patients of Lebanon, Mt. Juliet and other nearby communities a comprehensive array of services. Data released in April showed Wilson County was the fastest growing county in Tennessee in 2018. It added 4,085 residents during the year — a 3.4% increase in population that propelled the county to be the 57th fastest growing in the country.
New Children’s Outpatient Facility Breaks Ground in Murfreesboro
Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt broke ground in October 2018 on a new 37,500-square-foot facility that will significantly expand pediatric specialty care, outpatient surgery and imaging services to children in Rutherford and surrounding counties. The $27.2 million construction project is estimated to open in late 2019. The single-story facility will feature 22 multispecialty clinic rooms, after-hours/urgent care services, a suite of operating rooms, imaging capabilities such as MRI and X-ray, audiology booths for hearing tests and procedural areas. Rutherford County is one of the fastest-growing counties in Tennessee, with estimated projections showing that the region’s pediatric population for the area — including Rutherford, Cannon, Warren and Bedford counties — is expected to grow 8.5% over the next five years. Murfreesboro is also one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation.
Additional Inpatient Beds on the Main Campus
The conversion of the eighth floor of Medical Center East (MCE)-North Tower on the Vanderbilt University Medical Center campus from outpatient space to inpatient beds was completed in June 2018 and houses the new North Tower Medicine/Cardiac Stepdown Unit with 30 patient rooms and seven observation beds. The longer-range plan, which will similarly convert the sixth and seventh floors of MCE-North Tower to inpatient units, began in the second half of 2018, with construction completion of the project scheduled for the end of 2019 followed by occupancy in early 2020.