Look closely at the Richmond skyline and you can’t help but notice one of the newest additions to the cityscape – a gleaming and colorful 16-story structure extending high above the VCU medical campus. This bright beacon is the Children’s Hospital of Richmond (CHoR) at VCU’s Children’s Tower, the realization of a longtime dream for VCU Health and the families it serves. With its completion, the Children’s Tower has ushered in a new era of pediatric care in Virginia and is already making a big difference for patients, families, and medical staff.
Exceeding Care Expectations
Eleven-year-old Claire Ferguson has 1p36 deletion syndrome, a rare disease caused by a chromosome abnormality. With her family, Claire has been a CHoR patient nearly all of her life.
From overnight stays in the VCU Medical Center Main Hospital, where pediatric inpatient beds and intensive care were located on the seventh floor, to doctors’ appointments at the Children’s Pavilion, Claire and her mother Ashley have been frequent visitors.
“Before we even came to the new Children’s Tower, we always called it [the seventh floor of the Main Hospital and the Children’s Pavilion] Camp VCU, because the care and the love there were second to none,” Ferguson says.
When it came time for their first admission in the brand new Children’s Tower, Ferguson was admittedly apprehensive. She and Claire already knew the people and relied on their routes through the existing VCU facilities.
“On the day of the move, I was a little nervous because I had gotten used to the seventh floor,” she says. “But when we came over, I just lost it,” says Ferguson. “It wasn’t like going from hospital to hospital … it was as if we were going from a hospital to a children’s play place.”
Ferguson says it’s immediately evident that the Children’s Tower is specifically for young patients and their families. From the colors on the walls and floors, which are named for animals, to the other design touches that make such an important difference for families, Ferguson says “there’s a playful, magical spirit to it [the Children’s Tower]. It’s happy, it’s very positive, and there’s great morale here.”
Built for Families from the Start
Tracy Lowerre, clinical nurse liaison for the Children’s Tower, has worked within the VCU medical community for more than thirty years and has seen the Children’s Tower grow from its infancy to the medical hub for children it is today. In reminiscing about the community design fair held in 2019, when ideas were being shared for the structure’s development and its resources, she says the needs and wants of Richmond-area families were at the forefront of consideration.
This process of gathering suggestions and desires from stake-holders related to how the new facility would best serve families. “Before architects put pen to paper,” says Lowerre, “it really allowed them [Children’s Tower developers] to see the amenities and what things our families needed.”
The early input paid off. The completed Children’s Tower boasts 500,000 square feet of space that is intentionally designed for children and families. There are seventy-two inpatient rooms (all of which are private), lounges, and play areas. The private consultation rooms, gyms, and self-care and work spaces for parents and caregivers are physical manifestations of the elements that were suggested during early planning with the community.
“You don’t build a Children’s Tower every day,” Lowerre says. “Being able to do it right the first time and get all the stakeholders involved – which includes all of our children and families – was really important to us.”
Bethany Fisackerly, child life supervisor at the Children’s Tower, has been in her role just over a year and says the promise that the new facility held was a significant part of why she wanted to join the CHoR team.
Knowing what the facility would be able to offer its medical teams, the city of Richmond and the surrounding areas, and most importantly, its patients reeled in Fisackerly, who previously worked as a child life specialist in Florida. Now, she’s thrilled to spend her days supporting children and their caregivers in a setting specifically designed for them.
The Children’s Tower is “a physical representation of the investment that the VCU Health community has in its Richmond communities, its families, and its patients,” says Fisackerly.
CHoR at VCU’s Children’s Tower: A Special Place Just for Children
Jill McGehee, acting nurse manager of the Pediatric Emergency Department, recently celebrated two decades with VCU. For her, the Children’s Tower has proven itself to be family-centric in all regards while also allowing its medical staff to operate more efficiently. Whereas there were a variety of pediatric services available through the VCU Medical Center, the Children’s Tower is completely geared toward its young patients.
“It’s been a dream since I started twenty years ago,” she says. “We functioned for so long as a [children’s] hospital within a hospital, not everything we offered was pediatric specific.”
McGehee says that since the Children’s Tower opened in late April, it has been smooth sailing, thanks in part to some of the convenience aspects built into the hospital.
There’s a helipad on the roof of the tower, the Level 1 trauma center, and free valet parking (available 24/7) outside the emergency room entrance, all of which make it easier for families and medical staff to get patients the care they need as quickly as possible.
“We’ve already seen better communication between the emergency department and other departments within the Children’s Tower. I think it’s easier for families to get around and figure out where they need to be once they’re here,” says McGehee.“It’s more of a seamless transition. The staff have pivoted beautifully and provided amazing care since the move.”
Fisackerly says that some of the specific inpatient rooms and units included in the Children’s Tower – she cites rooms for epilepsy monitoring and bone marrow transplants – add to the medical facility’s ability to function effectively.
Before the Children’s Tower opened, these rooms existed alongside adult units in the Main Hospital. Being able to provide pediatric-specific spaces is a game changer.
“When we have those kinds of tools and resources,” she says, “it makes our jobs easier.”
All of this – the streamlined processes, thoughtful design, and focus on providing an array of pediatric services based on research, practice, and care – has made the Children’s Tower a coveted destination for medical staff.
“That’s how you get the best people,” McGehee says, “when you have a really good facility.”
CHoR at VCU’s Children’s Tower is Designed to Feel Like Home
Fisackerly and her team support patients and their families as they navigate their medical journeys, all the while providing kids with the opportunity to be kids during their time at the medical center. Part of this, she says, is making sure patients have a sense of home, comfort, and personal agency during their stay at the Children’s Tower.
From the soft serve ice cream and pizza on the cafeteria menu to the children’s garden, to the playrooms and teen spaces, the Children’s Tower isn’t designed to feel like a hospital. Whether it’s playing with a brother or sister in a sibling space or choosing the lighting scheme of their private room, the cozy, personal touches go a long way for patients and their families. It’s meant to feel like a home away from home.
“The ability to have control of their environment is huge, and in an environment where they [children] constantly hear ‘no,’ or ‘you have to,’ or ‘I’m sorry, but we can’t,’ these little things make the families and the kids feel like they’re heard,” Fisackerly says.
Nurse McGehee, too, appreciates that the Children’s Tower provides such an intentionally homelike setting. This makes the medical staff’s jobs easier.
“I think our goal is to make everything feel less like a hospital and less scary,” she says. “We have provided a comforting space and a place where the team can not only provide good care, but also provide really good support for these families and these children.”
Why the Children’s Tower Matters Nationally
Jeff Haynes, MD, VCU professor and director of the Children’s Trauma Center within the Children’s Tower, knows that CHoR represents a vital medical resource for the greater Richmond region.
After multiple attempts by entities to build a pediatric-specific hospital, Dr. Haynes says the Children’s Tower expands on VCU Health’s medical foundation already in place in the region.
“We have had the best specialty pediatric care in Richmond for decades,” he explains. “But what the Children’s Tower allows us to do is really grow and support that care through a state-of-the-art facility.”
From primary care needs to specialty surgical care, the Children’s Tower offers everything a patient may require, “with little need for them to go anywhere else,” says Haynes, adding that the new facility shines even brighter due to its repertoire of the latest equipment and technology.
“I think the Children’s Tower will absolutely accelerate our growth in every area that’s important to a tertiary and quaternary [degrees of specialized care available in a hospital] academic medical center,” Haynes says. “I think in five or ten years, we’ll just see exponential growth in all those areas, not only in patient volume, and regional referrals from up and down the East Coast, but growth in our clinical programs, continued recruitment of really excellent clinical faculty, and then world-class research – to finding what the most important pediatric diseases are and the most current treatments to making these kids better.”
Haynes adds that a medical facility specifically designed for children is an enormous resource for a population-dense city such as Richmond.
“A children’s hospital is really a transformative thing in a community the size of Richmond and surrounding counties,” he explains. “It’s also essential to sustain the level of care that children need in a state-of-the-art fashion due to the number of specialists needed.”
Dr. Haynes notes that because the tower is inextricably tied to the VCU academic medical center, it’s able to provide children with a wealth of medical professionals to address their specific needs. The residency, medical, and research education programs, which can only happen at a major medical hub, mean a high level of care is possible and sustainable in Richmond.
“It’s a formula for success,” says Haynes.
Real Impact on Children and Families
Ashley Ferguson says that in chatting with other families in the Children’s Tower, there’s consensus that everyone involved in the new Children’s Tower has gone the extra mile to add joy and comfort to what can oftentimes be a serious and frightening time in the lives of families.
“All of the families I’ve seen and interacted with … everyone has such positive things to say,” Ferguson says.
Looking out the window in Claire’s room over the city, a view that extends to the Richmond Raceway, Ferguson reflects on what the new facility means for her family and others who have already experienced or might one day find their way to the Children’s Tower.
“It’s so beautiful to know that I’m here, and my daughter is comfortable here, and she’s happy here … every day gets a little bit easier for her. Especially as the parent of a child with special needs,” says Ferguson. “The extra touches to meet her very complex needs are amazing.”
Ferguson says VCU Health facilities have been like a second home for her family over the years, and now they feel fully supported at the Children’s Tower. “In a world where there’s so much negative going on, being part of this experience with hundreds of people who are coming together for something that’s going to be a tremendous asset for Richmond and the surrounding community has been such a blessing,” Ferguson says. “We are so grateful for it.”
