Dell Children’s Medical Center North opened to patients on Thursday in Northwest Austin. It is the second location for Dell Children’s, following the flagship Mueller Boulevard location.
Hospital leaders say the new 187,000-square-foot facility brings needed access to medical care to neighborhoods in Austin and the city’s growing northern suburbs.
“The northern communities are expanding very widely, very quickly, and I would say that one of the biggest populations growing at this time is the children,” Cathy Heckenlively, the chief administrative officer for Dell Children’s North, said during a March tour of the facilities.
Like the original Dell Children’s, the new hospital, located at 9010 North Lake Creek Parkway, was built with its young patients in mind. Cartoon wraps of scenes from beaches, jungles and outer space cover the walls and machines in the facility’s imaging labs, and a new Ronald McDonald House suite on the third floor provides bedroom, kitchen and lounge space where families of hospitalized kids can rest and relax.
For now, the hospital has 36 patient beds, including 12 dedicated to children in the pediatric intensive care unit. However, the building’s empty fourth floor is poised to accommodate 36 additional beds if and when an expansion takes place.
As a Level III Trauma Center, Dell Children’s North also offers emergency and trauma services. An on-campus medical office building provides outpatient services including fetal medicine, neurology, child and adolescent health, and other specialties.
Dell Children’s is not the only hospital investing in the growing North Austin area. Another children’s hospital is headed soon to a spot just down the road from the new Dell Children’s campus; Texas Children’s Hospital North Austin is set to open at 9835 North Lake Creek Parkway in February 2024.
