CoxHealth partnership adds inpatient pediatric care

A long-planned big expansion of children’s health care options in Springfield launched on time this month, CoxHealth officials said.

CoxHealth’s partnership with St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University Medicine in St. Louis was set to debut pediatric inpatient care within Cox South on March 1, officials said at a news conference on Feb. 27.

A news release refers to the new services from St. Louis Children’s at CoxHealth as “an independently licensed pediatric hospital within the walls of CoxHealth.” Randy Berger, CoxHealth administrative director of corporate communications, confirmed inpatient care began on schedule, adding the operation is housed in space on the ground floor and first floor of Cox South Hospital.

“Today represents the official launch of the first fully licensed pediatric hospital in the southern half of the state,” Ashley Casad, president of Springfield Hospital Group and senior vice president of operations for CoxHealth, said at the Feb. 27 event, which concluded with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. “It took an extraordinary amount of effort, focus and perseverance to reach today.”

The March 1 go-live date for the hospital within a hospital marks a milestone in the pediatric partnership that began eight months ago, said Sarah Becker, vice president and administrator of St. Louis Children’s at CoxHealth.

“We’ve gone through an extensive process to get credentialed by the state of Missouri, by the Department of Health and Senior Services,” Becker said. “This is allowing us inside the walls of the hospital to say, ‘This is a separate institution.’ We had to show that we have all of our policies, we’ve got it together, we can provide this care, and it’s self-contained here.”

Casad detailed some of the work needed to meet the milestone.

“Every policy carefully reviewed, every physician carefully credentialed, every order set thoughtfully built, a new pharmacy constructed, workflows designed and redesigned and redesigned again, and regulatory requirements navigated and met,” Casad said of the partnership’s efforts.

Dr. Patrick Reich, interim chief medical officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, is also the medical director for infection prevention for St. Louis Children’s at CoxHealth. He said the pediatric hospital’s opening will strengthen patient outreach in southwest Missouri, adding it will connect “the children to this community, their families and the caregivers with the education, research and innovation that characterizes WashU Medicine.”

St. Louis Children’s at CoxHealth will bring expert care closer with a goal of easing the extra strain on families navigating the complexity of pediatric care, said Brittany Perches, pediatric nurse manager for St. Louis Children’s at CoxHealth. Pediatric care is something she knows both professionally and personally, as her son was born with osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bone disease.

“Over the past nine years, we’ve navigated multiple surgeries, broken bones, scheduled infusions, weekly therapies and visits for specialized care,” Perches said, noting the experiences have strengthened her compassion and refined how she supports families and staff.

“I have not walked every family’s path, but I have walked a similar one, and that insight makes a difference,” she said. “That’s why this new children’s hospital within a hospital is so exciting and so powerful because families can now access high-level ongoing care right here at home, close to their support system, their jobs and their community. For parents like me, that brings a huge sigh of relief.”

The pediatric inpatient operation announced Feb. 27 is separate from plans to build a 133,000-square-foot St. Louis Children’s at CoxHealth Specialty Care Center. Officials broke ground in January on that project, which is targeted for completion in summer 2027 on East Primrose Street, just west of the system’s Ferrell-Duncan Clinic, according to past Springfield Business Journal reporting. 

Becker said the number of employees expected to work at the specialty care center is still to be determined, and she declined to disclose project costs.