Children’s Hospital outpatient center ready for patients

When Michael and Tiffany Arnold of Cadiz first came to outpatient appointments on Akron Children’s Hospital’s downtown campus in August, they were lost.

They were bringing their infant son, Ezra, to get treatment for some thyroid issues.

Between going to the doctor’s office and another area of campus for some lab work, “we could not find anything,” Tiffany Arnold recalled.

But now, thanks to the hospital consolidating nearly all of its downtown outpatient practices and programs to the newly expanded Considine Professional Building off Bowery Street, it is much easier, they said.

The Arnolds, with now 4-month-old Ezra and 3-yearold Samantha, were in the new waiting room near the outpatient labs and Children’s Locust Pediatric Practice.

“It’s a much better layout,” Michael Arnold said.

That was the point in consolidating — to move practices at the Locust professional building and off-campus into one building, said Lisa Aurilio, the hospital system’s chief operating officer.

“Our services have just outgrown the areas we had. Our [outpatient] services have grown over 21 percent in just two years. Some of our specialties have truly escalated beyond that — for instance our gastroenterology services has grown 63 percent in just two years and our behavioral health practice has grown 21 percent,” she said.

The expanded six-story building, named in honor of longtime Children’s CEO William “Bill” H. Considine, took 17 months to build. It finished six months early and under budget. The construction budget originally was $101 million, but the project came in at $84 million, thanks to extensive feedback from employees in the building, who used similar cardboard mock-ups of the potential spaces as employees did when the nearby Kay Pavilion was being built, Aurilio said.

The expanded building, attached to the existing Considine Professional Building, increases the total space from 250,000 to 480,000 square feet. There also is room for future growth, Aurilio said.

Parking at the adjoining Bowery Parking Deck has been reconfigured and employees have been moved to another lot to allow for more patient parking.

The building — from its larger exam room and open eating areas to team-meeting areas for employees behind clinical space — was designed with the modern and future patient and employee in mind, she said.

Patients and families now check in at a main welcome desk area, or have the ability to sign in on kiosks from their My Chart accounts before being directed to the appropriate area for their appointment.

Practices began moving into their new spaces in August and will continue through December. On Monday, the new Lois and John Orr Family Behavioral Health Center will open. It will consolidate three mental health service areas, including two which have been housed at the AES Building near downtown Akron on South Main Street and a practice on Cedar Street, said Douglas Straight, clinical operations director for the division of psychiatry and psychology.

“It’ll be nice to have all of our staff together all under one roof,” Straight said of the 83 providers.

The hospital’s NeuroDevelopment Science Center and Sports Rehabilitation departments have expanded in the new building. Other departments and offices that moved into the addition include Adolescent Medicine, Gastroenterology, General Surgery and the Locust Pediatrics Care Group. The new outpatient lab and outpatient pharmacy also are in the new building.