Cedar Park Regional Medical Center is partnering with Dell Children's Medical Center to establish a new eight-bed department dedicated to serving pediatric patients at CPRMC. Dell Children's at CPRMC opened on the third floor April 1 and offers treatment for children with diagnoses such as asthma, gastroenteritis and pneumonia. A staff of 30 board-certified pediatricians rotate day and evening shifts at both Dell Children's Medical Center Central Texas in Austin and CPRMC, said Dr. Meena Iyer, Dell Children's pediatric medical director. "We are in-house from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., and then we take calls from home so we are available any time. And whenever the [emergency department] calls us, we are [there] within 30 minutes of the call," she said. "We go down to the emergency department ... and consult on kids." About 98 percent of the children who are admitted to Dell Children's at CPRMC are referred from the emergency room, CPRMC CEO Brad Holland said. The other patients are sent in for elective surgery or directly admitted by a primary care physician or specialist, he said. Prior to opening the new unit, CPRMC would have to send a majority of children needing inpatient care to other hospitals, Holland said. "About 20 percent of our emergency department patients are pediatric in nature, which is significant," he said. "Now we have access to pediatricians for consultative services." Children with trauma or serious conditions are transferred to Dell Children's in Austin. "Kids that need more intensive care or patients who need a subspecialty consultation along with the primary care, we do not admit them to the Cedar Park unit. We triage them to Dell [Children's]," Iyer said. CPRMC staff would not say how many children have been admitted to the unit since it opened. "Though the number of admissions has been relatively small, it has exceeded our expectation," CPRMC Director of Marketing Laura Balla said. "We anticipate that our pediatric admissions will continue to grow, and our services will continue to expand." Staff in CPRMC's existing neonatal intensive care unit were converted to Dell Children's employees, Holland said. As part of the partnership, the hospital's pediatrics department added 10 new nursing positions, which were filled by Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas, he said. "Cedar Park Regional Medical Center has a financial arrangement with Dell Children's Medical Center to provide the support and the professional staff for that unit," Holland said. "All employees and professional staff get a paycheck from Dell Children's Medical Center, [which] turns around and invoices me an amount ... needed to support that." CPRMC's alliance with Dell Children's Medical Center, both of which are affiliated with the Seton Family of Hospitals, will likely continue to evolve, he said. "Just because this is what we have today, doesn't mean it will be the final service offering that we have in two years, for example," Holland said. "I really see our relationship and our collaboration growing over time, probably exponentially."