Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp. on Thursday, July 11, held a groundbreaking celebration to commemorate beginning construction on a new pediatric emergency department at Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women.

The $14.1 million pediatric emergency department will open in 2015. The move is the second phase of a plan to transition pediatric services to Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women.

(Baptist Memorial Health Care Corp.)

The $14.1 million pediatric emergency department is expected to open in spring 2015. The move is the second phase of a long-term plan to transition pediatric services across campus from Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis to Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women.

“We do 5,000 deliveries a year at the hospital, so we want to provide that continuum of care for babies who are born at the hospital and their brothers and sisters,” said Anita Vaughn, CEO and administrator of Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women.

Since May 2012, all pediatric outpatient surgery, outpatient diagnostics and inpatient surgery have been moved to Baptist Memorial Hospital for Women. The hospital also has hired three in-house pediatric hospitalists.

The pediatric emergency room will expand to eight emergency room bays, compared with the five emergency room bays currently housed across campus at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis, Vaughn said. Two of those bays will be devoted to orthopedic care, four to respiratory care and two to general care.

“The pediatricians all come to the hospital anyway because of all the newborns – so we thought it would be great to have all of the services in one location,” she said. “We have had many focus groups with our pediatricians and pediatrician specialists and they have been overwhelmingly supportive.”

Vaughn said Baptist has focused on providing general pediatric care, but is increasingly carving out several specialized niches. One of those is providing pediatric eye care. Baptist received a $550,000 grant from the Baptist Memorial Health Care Foundation to open a pediatric eye center in January. The pediatric eye center provides everything from retinal surgery to surgery to repair birth defects and birth injuries.

“Since January, we’ve done about 80 surgeries and we have 15 ophthalmologists who are now on staff,” she said.

In June, Baptist Memorial also began construction on an $84.8 million Cancer Center near the Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis campus. The center is slated to open in mid-2015.

The Baptist Cancer Center will offer diagnostic services, radiation oncology, oncology, chemotherapy and infusion services, Cyberknife (a non-invasive treatment for tumors), stem cell transplants and supportive services and survivorship care all under one roof.