Request No. 1: $10 million in initial funding to support our plan to expand inpatient care capacity and improve the patient and family experience by replacing our 60-plus-year-old hospital with a state-of-the-art Innovative Care Center on our East Baltimore Campus.
The Need: An Innovative Care Center
- Build a facility that matches the special complex needs of the patients we serve, and of those who are waiting to receive services
- Create a more holistic and healing rehabilitative environment
- A dynamic, flexible space that will address the nuances of the ever-changing pediatric specialty healthcare landscape
- Patient- and family-centered spaces tailored to long-stay needs (average stay is 28 days)
- Expand care to include inpatient pediatric and youth mental health services and services across the continuum

The Impact:
- The merger of functional design and technological advances in this space is critical to our patients’ recovery and staff effectiveness
- Parents will be able to work while supporting and participating in their child’s care and maintaining important aspects of their lives
The Vision:
- Build up to 200,000 square feet of new space
- Infuse this Innovative Care Center with state-of-the-art design and innovative technology to optimize outcomes
- Private rooms with windows
- Therapeutic outdoor space
- Expand to serve new patient populations (both in-state and out-of state, bringing in revenue from outside Maryland)
- Expand to serve more children and teens with complex combined medical and psychiatric conditions, and patients with complex immediate healthcare needs
- Create clinical adaptive recovery environment (CARE) rooms that provide individualized environmental and sensory stimuli to improve daytime arousal and nighttime sleep and reduce the need for medications
- Partner with the Ronald McDonald House to create a family home within the center, including spaces where our families can come together with other families and family members
- Create a simulation lab/family training center within the patient care area to teach loved ones how to care for their child or teen at home