ATLANTA—A new hospital that falls under the umbrella of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is now under construction in the city’s northeastern suburbs. The $1.5 billion construction is being touted as the single-largest healthcare project in the history of the Peace State.

According to What Now Atlanta, the new project will be named the Arthur M. Blank Hospital in honor of a $200 million donation to the healthcare building that came from the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. The remainder of the billion-dollar project’s funding is coming from a combination of donations as well as cash on hand, according to the report from What Now Atlanta.

The $1.5-million-square-foot-hospital will entail a tower encompassing two wings with multiple operating rooms and various spaces for patient care. Additional space will be devoted specifically to research and clinical trials.

ESa and EYP are the architects for the new hospital; Brasfield & Gorrie and J.E. Dunn are contractors for the project.

In a recent news release from Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, Donna Hyland, the healthcare organization’s CEO, said that the new hospital will ensure that generations of Georgians to come will get the care they need.

“We are beyond grateful to Arthur and his family foundation for this generous donation to help our mission grow and inspire others to give to Children’s,” Hyland said in her statement.

“It’s a great honor for me and my family to be connected to Children’s, and a great honor for us to be connected to a system that has dealt with research, illness and disease for the most precious commodities that we have in the world, our children,” Arthur M. Blank, who serves as chair of the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, said this month regarding his namesake hospital. “Children’s is one of the greatest pediatric hospitals in the United States. The work they are doing right here in our backyard will make a difference.”

The hospital is being constructed in the Atlanta area known as North Druid Hills near Interstate 85. It is expected to officially open for patient care sometime in 2025.

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ATLANTA — Egleston Children’s Hospital, a subsidiary of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, has officially submitted a state application for its proposition of a new pediatric hospital in the Atlanta suburb of Brookhaven.

The plan entails replacing the current facility with a 446-bed pediatric hospital, which would offer a 100-bed increase in response to the rapidly growing population in the region.

The proposed 70-acre campus and $1.5 billion project for the North Druid Hills campus would be the highest-costing hospital construction plan in the history of the Georgia certificate-of-need (CON) program, according to experts.

In Georgia, it is required that the Georgia Department of Community Health approve any organization seeking to expand its physical medical services. The state CON process has the possibility of being drawn-out if a hospital project is opposed, with such objections typically coming from potentially competing facilities. In this case, no opposition has appeared at this time and Children’s expects to be delivered a decision from the department before the end of the year.

The planned facility would include two patient bed towers, which will hold the AFLAC Cancer and Blood Disorders Center, neonatal intensive care units, pediatric intensive care units and cardiac intensive care units. The hospital will introduce larger rooms with sleeping areas and big windows with “healing views” to achieve natural light. The project will also make room for 20 acres of the campus to hold greenspace with miles of walking trails as well as paths on and around the site.

In total, the project’s expenses will include the cost of the hospital as well as the jointed clinic and office building and central utility plant. Children’s also said it will invest more than $40 million in traffic and infrastructure improvements. Officials of Children’s expressed that this investment is a reflection of their focus to continue to meet the needs of children in Georgia as well as creating the best possible experience for patients and their families.

Construction for the new hospital will begin in 2020 and is slated for completion in 2025.

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ATLANTA — Emory Healthcare, the clinical arm of Emory University, and Kaiser Permanente publicized a new collaboration on June 13 that will brand two Emory hospitals as primary facilities for Kaiser doctors and patients in Atlanta.

Under the agreement, Kaiser will provide its nationwide model of hospital care to Emory University Hospital Midtown and Emory Saint Joseph’s Hospital. The California-based nonprofit insurer, which operates 39 hospitals in other states, said it would be able to implement its hospital “playbook’’ for its members at the two Emory Atlanta facilities.

Dr. Jonathan Lewin, CEO of Emory Healthcare and executive vice president of health affairs of Emory University, expressed that Emory and Kaiser Permanente share similar missions and goals, which allows them to serve their communities and bring together the best of academic scholarship, research and patient care, as well as family-centered care.

Both Kaiser and Emory described their new-found partnership as a double win, with Lewin stating that it is a great business deal for both sides, as the two organizations accentuate their shared values in quality, innovation, education, affordability and service.

Kaiser Permanente and Emory plan to build off each other’s strengths, and will expand and improve their capabilities in population health management, ambulatory and hospital care, research and academics, and the overall health of the communities they serve.

The integration will begin in October, which differs from Kaiser’s current arrangement with Piedmont and Northside in that the insurer operated under the two latter hospitals’ guidelines with its patients there, Kaiser said.

Jim Simpson, president of Kaiser’s Georgia operation, said their combined focus will be to generate a premier, integrated care and coverage model committed to improving health and affordability for their members. This also includes better addressing health disparities, while collaboratively working to increase the number of people and communities who benefit from what their organizations can accomplish side by side.

Although the terms of the deal are confidential, Emory’s hospitals will remain under Emory’s control, and its relationships with other insurers won’t change as a result of the new collaboration.

Kaiser currently has 375,000 patients in Georgia and will maintain relationships with other metro Atlanta and Athens hospitals. The Northside hospital will also continue labor and delivery services for Kaiser members. Kaiser Permanente has already provided a capital contribution toward expansion of the two Emory hospitals to accommodate the new and existing patients.

The Midtown and Saint Joseph’s hospitals have added beds, operating rooms and other assets to anticipate the influx of Kaiser patients, Lewin said.

Emory Healthcare has seven hospitals and is in the process of adding DeKalb Medical Center in Decatur, Ga. Nationally, Kaiser Permanente serves more than 12.2 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. Throughout the next several months of fully activating the agreement, Kaiser Permanente will focus on ensuring its patients continue to receive seamless, high-quality, affordable care. Emory Healthcare will maintain its existing relationships with all of its affiliated health plans and continue to serve their members and all existing patients without a change in service or access.

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ATLANTA — Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta is on a mission to completely transform the way pediatric healthcare will be delivered to future generations.

This month, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta announced the team of architects and consulting partners for new campus and hospital at North Druid Hills and Interstate 85 (I-85), which will replace the organization’s current location at Egleston hospital with a new campus and hospital at North Druid Hills and I-85. Children’s has also engaged industry-leading consultants for its support office building, planned at the northern side of the campus along the I-85 frontage road.

“This team blends the local, national and international expertise necessary to create the facilities our patients need in a highly efficient and effective manner,” said Chris Chelette, Children’s vice president of planning, design, and construction, in a statement. “Our consulting partners have embraced our goal of creating a transformative environment for pediatric healthcare.”

The new $1 billion project of the North Druid Hills Campus will include a 446-bed hospital, a highly developed pediatrics center with support buildings, and an additional 20-plus acre of green space that will create miles of walking trails and paths. The Center of Advanced Pediatrics will open its doors this summer, allowing Children’s to meet the anticipated pediatric population growth while also better serving patient families within a healing, natural landscape. The completion of the project in its entirety is slated for 2026.

“Our goal is simple — to help more children get better faster,” said Donna Hyland, CEO of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, in a statement. “Georgia’s pediatric population is growing and our new campus will allow us to meet our state’s need while improving health outcomes for our patients in a transformative environment for our patient families, physicians, staff and our neighbors.”

The patient beds will be held in two towers, with an accompanying medical office building and adjoined cancer and blood disorders center. This will also include additional structures featuring a central energy plant that will allow for efficient and sustainable energy on site as well as parking decks.

Children’s has selected national firm HKS Inc. as lead architect for both the pediatric center and replacement hospital due to its understanding of holistic healthcare design. “This project is a catalyst and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to transform the way pediatric healthcare will be delivered for generations to come,” said John Bienko, project lead at HKS.

Brasfield & Gorrie, with local offices, is currently serving as construction manager of the Center for Advanced Pediatrics project in progress. In addition, they will also serve as the construction manager for the replacement hospital. “We are honored to serve as the contractor for the future of pediatric care in Georgia,” said Dan Spinetto, healthcare regional operations manager for Brasfield & Gorrie.

Locally based Hendrick Inc. is the interior architect for the support building, with Kimley-Horn handling environmental and traffic engineering and HGOR, landscape design. DaVinci-Winstead Group is the overall project manager for the support building, the medical office building that adjoins the new hospital, and all campus parking decks. There will also be millions of dollars of roadwork done on and along I-85 to help clear space for the campus. The hospital has committed $40 million to road improvements that will include a road tunneled under I-85.

Kansas City, Mo.-headquartered JE Dunn will also have a key role on the master plan development, serving as the construction manager of the medical office building adjoining the new hospital as well as the central utility plant, parking decks and site improvements for the new campus. The construction of the support building and replacement hospital are being operated as separate projects since existing single-story office buildings for support staff cover a portion of the land that Children’s needs to clear before construction of the replacement hospital can commence.

The support staff will be able to move into its new home on the North Druid Hills campus before construction begins on the replacement hospital. Groundbreaking for the support building is expected this spring, with completion scheduled in the first quarter of 2020. This scheduling ensures that construction of the replacement hospital will be complete by 2025, which allows Children’s to meet growing bed demand for specialized pediatric care in Georgia efficiently. When the replacement hospital is complete, Egleston hospital will no longer serve as an inpatient facility.

Once completed, campus plans will be submitted to the Atlanta Regional Commission. Children’s expects that process to take four to six months. Construction on the campus is expected to begin in 2020.

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CANTON, Ga. — The Northside Hospital Cherokee in Canton has been making plans to upgrade and build a new hospital for close to 10 years. Construction began in Jan. 2014, with the new updated hospital slated to open on May 6, replacing the old 1960 facility that is still currently in use in North Canton. The new full-service community hospital will have more than 600 physicians and 1,700 employees.

The budget for the new 700,000-square-foot Cherokee hospital is $280 million, with 300 more employees than the old hospital, according to a statement. The architect on the project is Howell Rusk Dodson Architects (HRD) in Atlanta, and the general contractor is Batson Cook (also in Atlanta). Construction is already complete on the new hospital, according to Dale Lee, lead design architect at HRD, and will open with more than twice the square footage as the old hospital. Northside Hospital staff is focused on training and education between now and when hospital doors open, while overseeing the installations of equipment and furniture. The goal of the new hospital is to replace the existing facility with state-of-the-art modernized features, expansion capabilities for future growth and to upgrade the level of service for the people of Canton, according to Lee.

The new hospital is built on 50 acres of land, and will have 150 patient rooms, including a 24-bed ICU unit, 45 emergency department exam rooms, inpatient and outpatient radiology and cardiology, and six operating rooms, according to Lee. It will also have a cancer center and infusion center, an outpatient surgery center, and a 900-space parking deck. The new hospital will also have a women’s center — which the previous hospital did not — that will have 13 labor and delivery rooms, two C-Section rooms, and a Zen garden built outside, according to Lee.

Design aspects of the hospital were inspired by the Cherokee community, following Cherokee’s motto, “Where metro meets the mountains,” according to Lee. “We wanted to create some nice public spaces. We wanted to make sure we combined high end materials that you would want in a hospital, but also to use materials that are native to the area that offer warmth and a feeling of comfort,” said Lee. To achieve this, HRD used a combination of high-tech materials and design including metals, panels, and using clean lines in combination with stone walls, wood walls and very ‘earth-like materials,’” according to Lee. Much of the art in the hospital also comes from local artists and photographers.

The building is also designed and oriented to give patients beautiful views, according to Lee. “Creating a connection between the inside and the outdoors was a really important part of the design. There is so much natural light coming into the building, you don’t even need lights on most of the time,” said Lee. That said, 50 percent of the building’s light fixtures will be energy-efficient LED lighting, according to a statement.

To create a community feel, there is a large dining space called The Galleria with a large outdoor terrace space intended to be used by the public for community events, or simply to go out to lunch, according to Lee. “The new hospital will become a destination for the community to visit for pleasure in addition to going to the hospital when someone is sick. That’s something you don’t see every day,” said Lee. “This is what I personally enjoy about designing hospitals — helping people and giving the community something they can be proud of,” Lee said.

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