Children’s Medical Center Plano is looking to become a Level II trauma center as part of its ongoing expansion.

Hospital officials provided an update to the expansion during a May 25 virtual presentation.

Plans, which were first announced last year, include a 300,000-square-foot tower that will contain numerous specialty care facilities. The tower will nearly double the size of the hospital and increase the total number of beds from 72 to 240. Other plans include additional operating room space, expanded emergency room facilities, more hospital amenities and a new parking structure. Construction is expected to be completed by 2024, officials said.

A key focus during the presentation was the desire to change the hospital’s current designation as a Level IV trauma center to a Level II trauma center.

According to the American Trauma Society, a Level IV center primarily acts as a diagnosis and screening center where personnel decide whether to transfer patients to a higher-level trauma center. A Level II trauma center can provide that care for most injured patients.

The Plano hospital currently sends patients to Children’s Medical Center Dallas if their condition is too severe.

“There’s so much growth in the area and so many children and young families moving in. And there’s a need for all these specialty services as well that come along—the major one being trauma,” said Dr. Khoshnood Ahmad, service chief of emergency medicine. “Now [patients] have to travel farther south to go to these other trauma centers.”

As part of the shift to the higher designation, the hospital plans to add more radiology services, larger patient care rooms and a larger waiting area with additional amenities.

Ahmad said the changes should lead to shorter wait times for trauma patients. Officials hope the Plano campus will receive the Level II designation sometime in the next year, he said. Hospital officials said during the presentation that they will recruit and hire more staff intermittently over the next few years to fill positions related to the expanded facilities.

“The Children’s Medical Center is a very attractive place to come and work,” Ahmad said. “People love to come and to be part of the community and work at the medical center.”

Vanessa Walls, executive vice president of the northern market for Children’s Health, said children heal better when their lives are less disrupted by having to travel to other facilities for care.

“Our goal is to be able to eliminate that adversity, if you will, and bring these services and programs closer to home,” Walls said. “The distance between Plano and Dallas is a significant distance when you think about what has to happen to get that child ready for care and the impact to the larger family.”

Children’s Medical Center Plano opened in 2008 and has over 180,000 patient visits per year, according to a Children’s Health release.

The presentation also detailed a separate 30,000-square-foot Children’s Health facility currently under construction in Prosper near the intersection of US 380 and the Dallas North Tollway.

The virtual presentation can be viewed here.