Neonatal ICU now open at Jordan Valley Medical Center

(West Jordan Journal) West Jordan parents with new babies who need special care no longer have to travel outside the community for medical treatment. Jordan Valley Medical Center celebrated the opening of its Level III neonatal intensive care unit and automated laboratory – both the first facilities of their kind on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley – with a ribbon cutting on Sept. 2.

The 7,000-square-foot NICU is the latest addition to the JVMC’s expansion. In the last nine years the hospital has grown from 50 to 183 beds. Much of the NICU equipment is state of the art and the unit was designed with families in mind.

“One of the things you’re going to see with this unit, unlike a lot of the other neonate ICUs, is that it is a private room, not just a curtain wall, but actually solid walls within this,” said Brian Swilley, JVMC CEO. “You’ve got now lighting that can be dimmed, you’ve got sound absorption in the walls and in the ceilings … We’re trying to make for a very nice atmosphere for not only the patient, the little ones, but also for the families.”

The rooms are unique for an NICU, and “it will mean a lot to the families who have sick babies to be able to be in these private rooms be away from the noise, hustle and bustle,” said Dr. Arlen K. Jarrett of South Valley Women’s Health Care. “This is an advancement in technology; it’s an advancement of what’s being offered in this valley. We’ll probably see, as we did as we developed our women’s center, that we’ll have others coming through to see how we did it.”

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