For more than 110 years, Children’s Health has been a cornerstone of the North Texas community, providing high-quality care to children and evolving as the region has grown. Advancing this mission has never been more critical than it is today, as demand for health care in Dallas-Fort Worth continues to increase, with the population growth consistently outpacing the national average.
The pediatric population in Dallas-Fort Worth is nearly 2.5 million and is projected to exceed 3 million by 2032, doubling by 2050. In 2023, Children’s Health cared for 311,207 patients. Over the past decade, emergency services demand rose by 27%, and inpatient pediatric subspecialty demand is expected to grow by 5.1% in the next 10 years.
As the need for pediatric health care grows, Children’s Health is committed to expanding with North Texas. One of the ongoing investments Children’s Health has made to meet the region’s growing pediatric medical and surgical needs is a new Plano hospital tower in Collin County, set to triple bed capacity and significantly enhance clinical capabilities.
In 2020, plans were announced to expand the Plano campus with a new eight-story, 395,000-square-foot patient tower that will more than double the size of the hospital. This includes 140 new inpatient beds, tripling the Plano campus bed count; 48 Emergency Department rooms, nearly doubling current ED capacity; and 12 operating rooms—eight operational and four shelled for future growth.
This expansion project at Children’s Medical Center Plano allows the system to continue to serve the North Texas community by providing world-class, critical, and highly specialized care closer to home. Children’s Health believes patients and their families thrive when they receive expert care near their roots—their homes, schools, and support systems—and is proud to meet the rapidly increasing need for more pediatric services, from the most common to the most complex.
As the new Plano tower is slated to open at the end of 2024, the health care system will continue to set the pediatric benchmark and expand offerings to the rapidly growing community, right in their own backyard. There are many notable industry-leading advancements in capabilities and offerings included in the expanded Children’s Medical Center Plano campus, such as:
Advanced Technologies:
The Information Services (IS) team at Children’s Health has driven key technological advances at the new 5G-enabled Plano campus. This digital space integrates bedside tablets and a “digital front door” for enhanced patient engagement, which has more than doubled family involvement in care. The IS team also built infrastructure for new services, including an in-house Milk Lab for mothers and babies, and invested 15,000 hours into new software. The tower’s 19,500-square-foot glass façade reflects its state-of-the-art technology and houses a microgrid, making Children’s Medical Center Plano one of the first children's hospitals with full-building backup power.
Expanded Clinical Capabilities:
Children’s Health is investing in immense clinical program growth in Plano to address the evolving complex needs of children across the Metroplex, especially those north of Dallas. The expansion is enabling growth across key clinical program areas, including:
- Expansion and co-location of inpatient and outpatient services of the Pauline Allen Gill Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders
- Expanded Neurology services, such as EEG and Epilepsy Monitoring Unit
- Expansion of Heart Center outpatient services, including a Fetal Heart Program and new Sports Cardiology Program
- Expanded Pulmonology services
- Expanded Surgical services
- Expanded Gastroenterology services
- Expanded Orthopedic and Sports Medicine offerings provided by the Children’s Health Andrews Institute for Orthopedics & Sports Medicine
- Expanded non-chemotherapy-based infusion services