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CoxHealth announced plans today to build a new patient tower at Cox Medical Center South in Springfield. As KSMU’s Samuel Crowe reports, the nine story, 310,000 square foot tower will connect to Cox South’s existing tower, and will accommodate a Women’s and Children’s hospital, a Neuroscience Hospital, as well as room for future growth.
The Women’s and Children’s Hospital, which will make up three floors of the new complex, will include a brand new pediatrics unit, a new pediatric intensive care unit, a postpartum obstetrics floor and a neonatal intensive care unit. Steve Edwards, CEO of CoxHealth, says the hospital is a leader in women’s and children’s services.
“We are the only Children’s Miracle Network Hospital in the region. We have delivered more babies in the past 20 years than virtually every hospital in the state of Missouri but one. We are very proud of that. We are looking forward to new facilities that will catapult us into the future,” Edwards said.
Edwards noted that CoxHealth has recently been recognized nationally for its neuroscience care. The hospital is currently ranked number one in the nation in spinal fusion care by CareChex, and tops in the state in multiple areas of neurosurgery. He says the three story Neuroscience Hospital will improve these services.
“It will include offices for neurology, neurosurgeons, neurointerventional radiology, physiatry, and others, and there will be a nearly one of a kind combination of advanced expertise in the Midwest,” Edwards said.
The cost of the tower is estimated at $130 million. It will be financed by a $200 million dollar bond issuance.
CoxHealth will break ground on the new tower in May, and Edwards says he hopes it will be completed on Thanksgiving Day, 2014, to commemorate the opening of the first Cox Hospital on Thanksgiving in 1906.
Visit our website, ksmu.org, for more information on the new patient tower.
For KSMU News, I’m Samuel Crowe.