Friday afternoon at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center, a group of  dignitaries including Penn State President Graham Spanier and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell were on hand for the groundbreaking ceremony of the new Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. The $207 million facility will be LEED certified and will be funded in part by the state of Pennsylvania, which allocated $14 million of public improvement funds to the hospital, says Penn State Live. The Hershey Corporation chipped in another $1 million (bringing the total amount of their  financial support of the hospital to $62 million), and the Penn State IFC/PHC Dance Marathon donated $10 million.

The facility will be 252,000 square feet when completed and will include numerous features designed specifically to accommodate pint-sized patients and their families. The current Children’s Hospital is housed on the 7th floor of the main hospital building and utilizes facilities designed for adult patients (ie. there are no accommodations for parents to stay overnight in their children’s rooms). The new facility will include all private patient rooms and will offer space for children’s families to stay overnight.

Hospital CEO, senior vice president for health affairs and dean of Penn State College of Medicine, Harold L. Paz said that “for years our dedicated physicians, nurses and staff have provided excellent medical care in facilities that are less than optimal… This thoughtfully designed Children’s Hospital provides our outstanding caregivers with a state-of-the-art facility  to match the highly specialized, quality care they deliver. It offers amenities that truly meet the needs of today’s patients and families.”

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