Donna Hammack, Chief Development Officer at St. Elizabeth and Heart Hospital Foundation told us about some of the projects that she has been involved with at CHI St. Elizabeth. These projects are the updated Pediatric Place - ER Hospital just for Kids, Renovation of the Burn Unit (and Wound Center), Louise D. Schleich Women's Health Center and some of the improvements made at the Heart Hospital.
Pediatric Place - ER and Hospital Just for Ki\ds -- The Pediatric Place at CHI Health St. Elizabeth makes walking into an emergency department easier for parents and kids alike. The Pediatric Place is built around the needs of the family. It is a first for Lincoln, and it was made possible by the support of the St. Elizabeth Foundation. The Pediatric Place is located on the west side of the hospital, it combines an emergency department and inpatient care to provide comprehensive emergency and hospital care for children up to age 19. The care is for any condition requiring emergency medical care. The entrance is one that allows the kids and families not to be exposed to the adult ER. The facility has eight private rooms -- each with its own bathroom. The entire facility is decorated for children with wall murals and kid-friendly furniture. Each room has its own theme, such as safari, prairie, ocean, farm -- and each room was made possible by a donor to the St. Elizabeth Foundation.
Burn Unit and Wound Center - St. Elizabeth's burn center is the state's only verified Burn and Wound Center. A major redesign and refurbishment project was began in July 2019 and reopened in January 27, 2020. The St. Elizabeth Foundation received a gift of nearly $1.8 million which made this project possible. The late F. Phillips Giltner and his wife, Martha, gave the gift through a Charitable Remainder Unitrust. This gift impacts the care of every burn patient cared for -- and it makes the working environment greatly improved by the staff. When this Center reopened it unveiled a 16-bed unit and a new physical therapy space, new shower and updated tub rooms, plus floor to ceiling murals depicting Nebraska scenergy taken by Nebraska artists. Besides the updating of paint, flooring and equipment, the project added a therapy rehabilitation room. The verification was earned from the American Burn Association and the American College of Surgeons in 1996 and has maintained every since. It usually serves about 600 patients a year. Some of those are children because they are scalded by hot water accidentally. Donna told us that they do have two hyperbaric oxygen chambers that are used in the Burn unit to help with the healing of patients. These were purchased through donations to the St. Elizabeth Foundation.
Nebraska Heart - When the Heart Hospital was built they were unable to have an ER entrance. When you did arrive at the entrance it had two doors with a pole in the middle. With the help of donors they were able to put a canopy on the Nebraska Heart Emergency entrance which makes it a lot easier for the paramedics to bring the patient into the hospital. Donna said that the Cath Lab is only 50 feet away from the entrance and today they can get things done in 22 minutes compared to the 90 minute average time.
The Louise D. Schliech Women's Health Center -- This is the newest project that is underway. It will be located where the MRI area was once located at the hospital. This will basically be for breast cancer, but it may also be used for other cancers. They will be using GE Invenia - ABUS 2.0 which is FDA-approved breast ultrasound technology for detection of breast cancer in women with dense breast tissue. This Center should open up sometime in July of this year
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Donna told us that when COVID-19 hit hard, that some of the patients were transferred over to the Heart Hospital because of bed shortages.