The unit provides primarily private rooms which offer more space for additional family-centered accommodations and expanded technologies specifically designed for pediatric patients and their loved ones. The facility also features an enhanced working environment and technologies for physicians and hospital staff.

The renovated facility provides 31 inpatient beds in 21 private rooms and five double rooms. Each room contains new patient entertainment technology, large screen televisions, VCR/DVD players, game system, Ethernet access and cordless telephones with voice mail.

Every room also includes space for parents, with Ethernet access, a sleeper chair or sofa, separate room lighting and nurse call. Other features of the unit include the playroom, a teen lounge, a family lounge, a consult room, and a family laundry room.

Additional new technologies include a 12-bed patient monitoring system, a new nurse call system, enhanced patient security, a treatment room for performing minor procedures, and three negative isolation rooms to prevent the spread of contagious disease.

The open house event will begin at 1:30 p.m., with remarks at 2 p.m. from Donna Katen-Bahensky, senior associate vice president for medical affairs and CEO of UI Hospitals and Clinics, and Michael Artman, MD, Physician-in-Chief, University of Iowa Children's Hospital.

University of Iowa Children's Hospital serves children and their families at its main campus in Iowa City and satellite clinics in communities throughout Iowa. A 165-bed "hospital within a hospital," University of Iowa Children's Hospital benefits from the sophisticated services and comprehensive resources of UI Hospitals and Clinics. Child magazine ranks University of Iowa Children's Hospital among the top 20 children's hospitals in the nation.

For more information:

University of Iowa Children's Hospital

Michael Artman, MD