New Trios Birth Center Opening Date Set

Trios Health is pleased to announce the opening of its new birth center is set for Tuesday, March 29, 2022.

“We are eager to open the doors of our new birth center to expectant mothers and their families,” said John Solheim, Trios Health Chief Executive Officer. “It has been a long time coming to bring all of our hospital services under one roof, and we are incredibly excited for the public to see the new space and for families to be able to welcome their babies at our Trios Birth Center.”

Prior to the official opening of the unit, Trios Health will host a ribbon cutting ceremony and public tours on Wednesday, March 23, at 4:30 p.m.

The new Trios Birth Center was made possible by a nearly $22 million investment from LifePoint Health, of which Trios Health is a part.

The current Family Birth Center on Auburn Street, located within the original Kennewick General Hospital that opened in 1952, will close its doors permanently the morning of March 29, and all services will be transitioned to the Southridge campus at 7 a.m. that day.

Patients in labor should check in at the Emergency Room entrance on the Southridge campus from March 29 forward. They will be guided on where to go once they arrive. Prior to 7 a.m. on March 29, patients in labor should continue to check in at the Family Birth Center on the Auburn campus.

The approximately 23,376 square foot birth center addition was constructed on the second and third floors of the Southridge hospital, with approximately 9,970 square foot of existing space also being renovated for the project. The new unit includes two dedicated rooms for Caesarean Section deliveries, six Labor, Delivery, Recovery and Postpartum (LDRP) rooms, and a 10-bed Critical Care Nursery for babies born after 32 weeks’ gestation. From the space that was renovated, 11 existing beds from the medical/surgical floors were converted to postpartum beds. Construction is continuing after the completion of the birth center to expand the third floor of the hospital to relocate those beds to that floor. Trios Southridge Hospital’s previous licensed bed count is jumping from 74 to 111 with the completion of the new unit, but the overall bed count does not change with 37 of those beds having been relocated from the Auburn campus to the Southridge campus.

Construction was completed by Layton Construction, who will continue to remain on site to complete the medical/surgical expansion.

“Layton Construction has been incredible with this project and has continuously delivered on time and ahead of schedule,” Solheim said. “We are grateful to have worked with them and for the professionalism and dedication they have brought to this project. We know they are eager to turn over the new unit to us and see it open to the public.”

Originally expected to be completed in late April, the Trios Birth Center is opening about a month earlier than anticipated when construction began.

The relocation of the unit to the Southridge campus has also necessitated the move of the Trios Obstetrics and Women’s Health Clinic, previously located at the Trios Care Center at deBit adjacent to the Trios Family Birth Center. The new Obstetrics and Women’s Health Clinic opened on the sixth floor of the Trios Care Center at Southridge on March 1. Doctors Kyle Curtis, DO, Hala Madi, MD, Shumal Malepati, MD, and Adam Smith, DO, practice at that clinic.