Picking up: Since launching a free valet service for patients and visitors on Monday, Woman’s Hospital has seen use of the service steadily grow. “As awareness grows, we expect to be parking well over 150 cars a day,” says hospital spokeswoman Amiee Goforth in an email to Daily Report. The valet service is being offered at both the hospital campus and physician office building entrances on Airline Highway. Service is offered from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, and from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday at the hospital only. The service is strictly complementary, with no tips accepted.
In the pipeline: Six weeks after purchasing attorney Gordon McKernan’s former headquarters at 5630 Bankers Ave., Lee Michaels Fine Jewelry received the permits today to begin renovations on about 40% of the building. But the company has no plans to begin construction any time soon and no timetable has been set, says Market President Scott Berg. Lee Michaels purchased the building for $1.66 million in late September. As part of the planned renovations, workers will construct a 938-square-foot training room in the Bankers Avenue building and renovate 4,168 square feet of the 13,902-square-foot space. Berg says the $160,000 renovations should be completed sometime in 2016.
All together now: St. Francis Medical Center today formally rededicated its pediatric unit as St. Francis Pediatrics, a partner of Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital. St. Francis Pediatrics is the first hospital-based partner of OLOL Children’s Hospital in Baton Rouge. The partnership is a clinical collaboration that connects local and regional resources and builds upon existing linkages between St. Francis and OLOL Children’s Hospital. It will allow for extended expertise in the hospital as well as specialty clinics and community programs that will improve pediatric health in Louisiana, says OLOL in a news release. OLOL is working on building a new Children’s Hospital and could break ground on it by the end of the year.
