Children's hospital underway in Florida

Pediatric care is the focus of a planned 60-acre central Florida development. Children’s healthcare provider Nemours (Jacksonville, FL), which offers clinical treatment coupled with research, advocacy, and educational health and prevention services, has broken ground on the Nemours Children’s Hospital in Lake Nona’s medical city. The 620,000-square-foot hospital will include 95 beds and serve as the core of a campus featuring a children’s clinic, emergency department, and diagnostic and ambulatory programs, along with education and research centers. The campus will cater to the needs of “medically complex children,” according to an announcement. Such needs are undermet both in the region and in the healthcare industry.

The Nemours’ campus, in proximity to such medical entities as the UCF College of Medicine, Burnham Institute for Medical Research, Orlando Veterans Affairs Medical Center, M.D. Anderson Cancer Research Institute, and University of Florida research facility, is expected to provide access to specialty medical services, biomedical research, and medical and health training. Nemours plans to open the $400 million hospital in 2012.