Children’s Minnesota adding more clinic services in Twin Cities suburbs

Children’s Minnesota is spending about $2 million to expand clinic services in Lakeville, Rogers and Woodbury.

The move is latest phase of an ongoing $8.2 million project to expand services at a number of specialty clinics throughout the Twin Cities metro, according to an announcement to be released Tuesday.

The $2 million suburban expansion will include everything from concussion and cardiac treatment to ENT and neurosurgery care, depending on the location.

Two earlier phases included an expansion of specialty services in Minnetonka and the opening of a second specialty center in Maple Grove.

“We started shortly after COVID and then just really cautiously worked to expand where we really knew the need existed,” said Monica Schiller, vice president of operations for clinical service lines and ambulatory services. “There probably will be some other plans as we look into the future, but at least for this cycle of our strategic plan … [this] caps off through the end of 2024.”

The spending fits with a broader trend of health systems beginning to invest again in construction projects following big disruptions from COVID-19 followed by financial pressure from rising labor costs.

Children’s Minnesota ranked as the state’s 11th largest nonprofit group in 2022 and is one of Minnesota’s largest providers of pediatric care. In addition to hospital campuses in Minneapolis and St. Paul, the system operates about 15 clinics with primary and/or specialty care services.

The expanded spaces and services in Rogers and Lakeville opened this month, while the Woodbury expansion is scheduled to open September. The project nearly doubles the square footage of the Lakeville clinic, while new spaces are proportionally smaller in Rogers and Woodbury.

With its strategic planning in recent years, Children’s has looked for ways to provide more services closer to where patients live. In some cases, the health system is doing so by adding leased space adjacent to existing clinics.

“We really wanted to be thoughtful about how do we leverage where we have existing clinic space and how do we think about bringing services that ... have a high demand,” Schiller said.