- November 23, 2024
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Also: Hospital plans urgent care facility
Hospital OK’d for higher level of neonatal care
Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center has received a Certificate of Need from the Agency for Health Care Administration for a Level II neonatal intensive care unit designation. The certificate was awarded because a total of 1,500 babies were born at the hospital in a one-year period, according to Lindsay Rew, assistant director of communications.
The hospital plans to spend $10 million in construction and equipment on a new facility, expected to open by late 2016.
A Level II NICU is equipped with incubators, ventilators, and specialized monitoring equipment and cares for sick and premature newborn infants who need medical care related to various medical conditions. In addition, a Level II NICU can care for infants with mild health problems related to prematurity, according to Rew.
Level II NICUs are required to have neonatologists and neonatal nurse practitioners, in addition to Level I health care providers. Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center has had these skilled clinicians on-hand since 2009 and will be adding a third neonatologist in early 2015.
“We have been licensed as a Level I Neonatal Nursery, but have been planning for a Level II NICU for quite some time now,” said Becky Vernon, director of women and children’s services. “For years, we have had the advanced technology, the specialized equipment and the skilled, expert medical staff needed to provide Level II NICU care, we just didn’t have the designation from the state,” she said.
The building’s third floor has an open roof space where the NICU facility will be built. It will become part of the fourth floor, where the BirthCare Center is located. There will be 16 private rooms and 16,332 square feet will be added to the building.
Urgent Care will be Florida Hospital’s second in county
Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center has begun construction of a 5,200-square-foot Centra Care urgent care facility at 1014 W. International Speedway Blvd. It is expected to open in the summer.
The facility will be the 26th Centra Care in Florida and the second in Volusia County. The first Centra Care opened in June in Port Orange.
Darlinda Copeland, Florida Hospital Memorial Medical Center chief operating officer, said it will provide care for “urgent, nonemergency medical needs.” Care for conditions such as coughs, colds, infections, allergies and flu will be available seven days a week.
Visit centracare.org.
