University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital formerly University of Iowa Children's Hospital and Children's Hospital of Iowa is a pediatric acute care academic children's hospital located in Iowa City, Iowa. The hospital was founded in 1919 and its current facility, opened in 2017, overlooks the university's football home, Kinnick Stadium. The hospital has 190 inpatient pediatric beds and is affiliated with the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties to pediatric patients aged 0–21 throughout Iowa and is one of the only children's hospitals in the region and state. University of Iowa Stead Family Children's Hospital also features the only ACS verified Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center in the state. UI Children's Hospital also has an extensive library of health information for people of various ages.
History
The hospital originally was founded in 1919.
Firsts
The University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics is also where Dr. Ignacio Ponseti developed the Ponseti method. The Ponseti method is a revolutionary non-surgical way to treat congenital clubfoot, which had previously been treated through surgeries to infants or children at a young age. The Ponseti method is a way to treat clubfoot through a series of manipulating bones and tendons in the foot and holding them in place through a series of casts. It is a treatment technique that is still used worldwide to this day.
New facilities
In the fall of 2012, a project began to create a new University of Iowa Children's Hospital. The hospital is located to the west of the original at the site of a former parking structure for University Hospital, overlooking Kinnick Stadium, and is also connected to the hospital and new parking structure. The target completion date for the project was initially set for March 2016, but delays meant that the new facility did not receive its first patients until February 2017; seven of the 14 floors opened at that time while construction on other floors was nearing completion. The project cost approximately $292 million – none of which was funded by tax dollars. The funding was achieved through bonds, patient revenue, and private gifts. The building is 480,000 square feet of new construction as well as 56,250 square feet of renovated existing space. It contains 14 floors. A of the construction was maintained throughout the process, as well as an update of the for the building.
Parent Magazine ranked UI Children's Hospital as the 20th ranked Children's Hospital in America for 2009.
U.S. News & World Report's annual publication of "America's Best Children's Hospitals" ranked UI Children's pediatric kidney disorders treatment program as 25th. This makes UI Children's Hospital the first in Iowa to achieve a pediatric ranking.
U.S. News and World Report's ranking of Best Children's Hospitals ranked University of Iowa Children's Hospital in seven specialties:
The pediatric heart transplant program received the Transplant Access Program designation from OptumHealth Care Solutions in 2008.
Community
Kid Captain program
Since 2008 the University of Iowa Children's Hospital has teamed up with the Iowa Hawkeyes to honor UI Children's Hospital patients and celebrate their inspirational stories. Kid Captains are nominated by those familiar with them and are given the opportunity to be an honorary captain at a University of Iowa football game. Fourteen children are chosen every year. In 2013 there were 462 children nominated.
The Wave
The opening of the new hospital led to the creation of what ESPN called "college football's coolest new tradition". The new facility includes a top-floor lounge area known as the Press Box Cafe that has a view of the entire Kinnick Stadium field, allowing patients and their families to see all Iowa home games live, and also includes big-screen TVs to allow them to watch Hawkeyes road games. A suggestion on a Hawkeyes fan page on Facebook led to "The Wave"—at the end of the first quarter of Iowa home games, the crowd faces the hospital and waves at the patients and their families watching in the Press Box. For the Hawkeyes' first night home game of the 2017 season against Penn State, the fan site where the idea of "The Wave" originated encouraged fans to turn on their cell phone flashlights while they waved to the patients.