Intermountain Health’s new Children’s Hospital in Lehi is now open. The hospital, called the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Campus, opened its doors for a public tour in anticipation of its grand opening.
The five-story, 66-bed pediatric health center is Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital’s second campus. After three years of construction, the hospital had its ribbon-cutting ceremony on Feb. 2.
“It’s been nearly four years to the day that we announced the second campus of Primary Children’s Hospital, and we’ve all been anxiously awaiting the moment we open the doors to serve the children and families in the rapidly growing Southern Salt Lake County and Utah County,” said Lisa Paletta, president of the Miller Family Campus in a press release.
Utah County is one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States, and almost one-third of Primary Children’s patients are in Utah and South Salt Lake County. In addition, children make up roughly 31% of Utah County’s population.
Chris Miller, chief medical officer of the Miller Family Campus, said the pediatric doctors from the Salt Lake Primary Children’s Hospital will also work at the Lehi campus. The new health center will provide most of the same health services as the Salt Lake center.
The pediatric hospital has trauma and emergency services, a neonatal intensive care unit, surgical services, imaging services and mental health services.
The Miller Family Campus also has Utah’s first walk-in pediatric behavioral health crisis center.
“At this campus, we’ll be able to provide the full spectrum of behavioral health services,” Miller said. “From clinic … all the way up to in-patient behavioral health, this is the first time we’ve had all those services concentrated in one place.”
The pediatric medical center also has a “school zone” where hospitalized children are given tutoring sessions for extended stays.
“We help [students] transition back to school by doing tutoring depending on the age of the kid,” said David H. Smith, a teacher at the Miller Family Campus. “For high school, we work on credits and the teachers assigned homework … and [for a] third grader we’re just working on grade level appropriate flash cards with multiplication facts [and] some history games that we have.”
The school zone is part of the family support services, which also include playrooms and “Sophie’s Place,” a music therapy room. Spencer Hardy, the director of family support services, said the rooms and services were modeled after the Primary Children’s Hospital Salt Lake Campus.
“We will have music therapists, art therapists and dance therapists who can all use the healing components of the creative arts,” Hardy said.
Challee Johnson, a certified child life specialist, said the family support services help bring normality to the children’s lives.
“We … know from research the impact that hospitalization could have on the development of kids, so we try to create a space for them away from the medical things, a place where they feel normal and lay out their emotions and lay out what’s happening to them,” she said.
Intermountain spokesperson Jennifer Toomer-Cook said that donations will pay for family support services when patients’ health insurance does not cover the expenses.
