Located at the southwest corner of the Preston Road campus, the four-story, 185,000 square-foot building will include four operating rooms, an imaging center, physical therapy space, orthopaedic and other pediatric clinics.
The new center is expected to open in 2017; however, it began seeing patients on Aug. 31 at the Children’s Health Specialty Center located inside the medical center at 7601 Preston Road.
From right, Christopher Durovich, president and CEO of Children's Health, joins world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon James R. Andrews and Andrews Institute's orthopaedic surgeons Christopher Redman, Katheryn Bauer and Surgical Director John Polousky to mark the groundbreaking for the Children's Health Andrews Institute for Orthopaedics & Sports Medicine in Plano on Nov. 6.[/caption]Named after world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon and Medical Director of the Andrews Institute James Andrews, the facility will also include indoor athletic performance facilities, a half-size football field and running track, said Christopher J. Durovich, Children’s Health president and CEO.
“We’ve been working with school nurses to help them, both through telemedicine as well as direct contact, and now we’ll add trainers, coaches and athletic directors in what clearly is a hotbed of sports so that the kids can stay healthy and prevent injuries,” Durovich said. “But when they are injured, we can get them the right care at the right place at the right time.”
“Youth sports have played in our society and continue to play in our society a very important role—kids build self-confidence, it gives them a chance to celebrate success, it brings discipline, it brings structure, reward and fond memories,” he said.
In the past year, Durovich said about 30 million children in the United States participated in a form of organized athletics, and about 3.2 million suffered from sports-related orthopaedic injuries. Children’s Health decided to focus on sports medicine and pediatric orthopaedics to prevent sports-related injuries in the first place and if they happen, to treat them, Durovich said.
As a founding partner for the project, Andrews said injuries related to overuse are seen more often among young athletes because many children play the same sport year-round in order to train to become professional athletes.
“The joy of sports medicine, believe it or not, is still—winning,” he said. “Our goal here is to keep the kids on the field and out of the operating room.”
