MADISON, Wis. – To meet the growing demand for care, American Family Children’s Hospital is expanding the pediatric intensive care unit, or PICU, and adding a cardiac intensive care unit, or CICU.
The plan is to build 24 pediatric and cardiac intensive care beds on the vacant sixth floor of the children’s hospital. There will be 14 rooms for medical surgical pediatric intensive care patients and 10 rooms for cardiac intensive care patients.
When the children’s hospital opened in 2007, the sixth floor, which is 33,000 square feet, was left vacant for future growth to meet anticipated increasing demand.
This expansion will increase the total bed count at American Family Children’s Hospital to 131. The current 21-bed PICU will be modified, maintaining 17 rooms that will continue to be intensive care-capable, while allowing flexibility for specialty care growth, such as cancer and blood disorders, as well as space for seasonal volumes, such as respiratory season.
American Family Children’s Hospital is the only Level 1 pediatric trauma center in the region, and just one of two in Wisconsin. As such, the current PICU at the children’s hospital is consistently at capacity, according to Nikki Stafford, president of American Family Children’s Hospital and system vice president of pediatric services, UW Health Kids.
“This expansion is essential to enable us to meet the needs of children with the most critical and complex medical needs,” she said.
In 2023, UW Health Kids was unable to accept more than 100 kids needing the PICU at American Family Children’s Hospital because there were no beds available. While temporary adjustments have been made to increase capacity, there is a need for a long-term solution, Stafford said.
“One patient turned away is too many,” she said. “Families should not face the uncertainty of whether there is a hospital bed available when a child is sick.”
Demand for pediatric specialty care is rising across multiple specialties, according to Stafford. UW Health Kids specialty care programs such as cancer, neurosciences and transplant have reported an increase in both the number of patients and the severity of cases, she said.
Heart care has also seen a rise in demand. Over the past three years, the children’s hospital experienced a 46% increase in cardiac patients and a 23% increase in cardiac inpatient surgical cases. On average, 60% of PICU beds are filled by children receiving cardiac care at American Family Children’s Hospital, which is why the expansion will include cardiac intensive beds.
Having a CICU will allow UW Health Kids experts to care for these patients’ unique needs. Adopting this national best practice also keeps UW Health Kids at the forefront of pediatric cardiac care, which helps attract the best physicians, surgeons, and care team experts, according to Stafford.
“It is clear our expertise is in demand, which underscores the necessity to expand our pediatric intensive care unit and to have a dedicated cardiac intensive care unit,” Stafford said. “We are excited for this project to get underway because it will positively impact all the children and families who come to the hospital.”
The project will cost $33 million. The project will be paid for through philanthropic efforts. A $5 million gift from Fred and Debbie Schwartz and a $10 million gift from American Family Insurance provided the lead philanthropic support for this project.
Construction is set to begin in 2026, with an estimated construction time of 17 months. The unit should open in late 2027.
