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That All Children's Hospital and Bayfront Medical Center are next-door neighbors is no accident. They were drawn together in downtown St. Petersburg nearly four decades ago by city government leaders who thought the marriage would bring better community health care, and they were right. Today, as All Children's is a national leader in pediatric care and prepares to break ground on a new $50-million facility, the benefits of that collaboration are clearer than ever.
Just look at how the babies are born. The mother comes to Bayfront to deliver her baby. But All Children's is next door, ready after birth, just in case the baby has problems. In the new hospital, there won't even be a next door. All Children's is providing space in its own building for Bayfront's obstetrics operation, which puts both mothers and babies in the same building.
"It just makes sense," says Bayfront president and CEO Sue Brody. "Our whole emphasis with all our shared programs is to find a way to bring the services to the patient, rather than having the patient traipsing around to reach the services."
The new building will also allow All Children's to provide more space for families in each child's room, which is particularly important for a pediatric hospital that draw patients from 17 counties. "We don't have enough space per bed," says All Children's president and CEO Gary Carnes. "We have to address that . . . families need a place to stay alone."
The two hospitals are still working on the details of the new building and new expansion plans for Bayfront, but their cooperation makes the prospects all the more exciting. In recent years, unfortunately, these two nonprofit community hospitals too often have fought with one another. Bayfront itself, which was once operated by the city, at one point denounced the very agreement that had brought the hospitals to the same locale.
With these new facilities, though, Carnes and Brody and their boards of trustees are reconnecting the hospitals in more than just a physical sense. As Carnes puts it: "Both organizations share the same goal, to provide good health care." That's true community health care, and exactly what the founders had in mind.