Children’s of Alabama

Background

Since 1911, Children's of Alabama has provided specialized medical care for ill and injured children. Ranked among the best children's hospitals in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, Children's serves patients from every county in Alabama and nearly every state. With more than 3.5 million square feet, it is one of the largest pediatric medical facilities in the United States.

Challenge

Children's sought a disciplined planning framework to evaluate the future of outpatient services within a broader campus and ambulatory network context. The effort required more than a traditional facility assessment. It called for an integrated view of patient demand, service line opportunity, stakeholder priorities, facility options, and long-term strategic alignment.

The central question was how planned outpatient investments could be appropriately sized, configured, and prioritized to support patient access, operational efficiency, campus planning, and future growth.

Solution

Hammes supported Children's of Alabama through an integrated feasibility, master facility planning, and ambulatory network planning process focused on the future of outpatient services through a new, multi-specialty ambulatory center on campus. Working collaboratively with leadership, clinical experts, and operational teams, Hammes helped establish a practical planning framework that reflected stakeholder priorities, projected demand, service line considerations, facility implications, and the organization's long-term vision for the existing concept under consideration by Children's leadership.

To support strategic decision-making, Hammes evaluated current and projected patient volumes, market demand, demographic trends, and outpatient service needs. This analysis helped inform ambulatory network planning considerations, including how future outpatient services could be organized, scaled, and supported across clinical areas over time.

Hammes also developed multiple future-state planning scenarios to evaluate facility feasibility and campus impact. These scenarios considered renovation-in-place approaches as well as potential new outpatient facility options, with attention to patient experience, operational efficiency, scalability, and long-term sustainability, and defined potential capital requirements for the project.