CHOC Children’s: Nurture, advance and protect the health and well-being of children.

Children’s Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) just unveiled its beautiful new tower on their campus in Orange, California.  The $550 million, 425,000 square foot building is seven stories tall.  It contains patient rooms, advanced operating rooms, laboratory, pathology and imaging services along with Orange County’s only fully-dedicated pediatric emergency department.  But what really struck me is the friendly and inviting design.  It is open and airy with lots of bright colors and very few straight lines.  The curvature of the walls and corridors creates a relaxing atmosphere.  A resort hotel feel in many ways.  A comforting place for children, their parents and siblings, who are often dealing with serious medical conditions.  Disneyland Resort donated $5 million towards the new facility and helped with the lobby design.  The lobby is two stories with an ocean and the beach theme complete with friends from “Finding Nemo.”  Each additional floor has a different theme.  The basement is dinosaurs, the mid floors are flora, fauna and cool things such as insects.  The upper floors…  you guessed it, the sky and then outer space.  A great concept. The Seacrest Studios, donated by Ryan Seacrest,  is an in-house multimedia broadcast center and gives patients an opportunity to be DJ’s, while others can “call in” and request songs as part of their very own radio station.  While touring the building with long time friend and now CHOC staff member Patty Randall, Bob Lane and I met one of their volunteers, named Pippi.  Pippi is a 5 year old Papillon mix dog.  Pippi is one of many dogs who visit the children.  A fun fact is that each dog has its own trading card so the patients can collect and trade photos of their favorite “volunteers.”  I have had the honor to visit some of the leading children’s hospitals on four continents, and I must say that the work that went into the psychosocial aspects of healing at CHOC are cutting edge. http://www.choc.org/