In a milestone for maternal and infant health in Philadelphia, Temple Health is proud to announce the official opening of Temple Women & Families Hospital at Wyoming and Castor Avenues.
On September 3, the hospital welcomed its first baby: Joelina Rivera of Philadelphia, at 10:58 PM.
“It’s exciting – I feel honored,” said Niaesha Hart, Joelina’s mom.
Joelina’s birth was followed by two more welcome arrivals the next morning: Hazel Torres and Romeo Armani Herrera.
This joyous occasion marks Temple’s promise to deliver high quality, accessible healthcare services to its community in a space that was designed specifically to address their needs and provide an outstanding patient experience.
“We know that welcoming your baby into the world is one of life’s most meaningful moments, and that’s why we’ve designed a maternity experience that prioritizes comfort, privacy, and a deeply supportive environment—for women and their loved ones,” said Abhi Rastogi, MBA, MIS, Executive Vice President of Temple Health and President and CEO of Temple University Hospital Inc.
The newly opened inpatient areas of Temple Women & Families Hospital include a premier neonatal ICU with 41 beds, 13 family-focused labor and delivery rooms, 32 private post-partum patient rooms, 7 labor and delivery triage beds, 2 labor and delivery operating rooms, and 8 adult ICU rooms.
The new inpatient services add to the broad array of outpatient services already available at the hospital, including gynecology, obstetrics, family medicine, pediatrics, operating rooms focused on same-day surgeries, X-ray, and CT/MRI. The same-day surgical services currently being offered include OB/GYN, colorectal, plastic and hand surgery with room for expansion.
“Temple Women & Families Hospital is more than a new building – it’s a commitment to setting a new standard for outcomes-focused maternity care in Philadelphia and across the country,” said Sharon Kurfuerst, EdD, OTR/L, FACHE, Executive Director of Temple Women & Families Hospital.
Temple has developed a Maternal Health Outcomes Dashboard to study trends and key factors driving inequities in maternal outcomes, enabling targeted interventions that reduce risk and ensure real-time, informed decisions to improve health for both mom and baby.
Temple is also addressing critical mental health needs with the launch of the Perinatal Collaborative Behavioral Health Care Program (PCBH), supported by a grant from the William Penn Foundation. This program will embed licensed clinical social workers, peer support workers, and psychiatrists directly into the care team to expand access to behavioral health care, promote support services, and enhance continuity of care for pregnant and postpartum patients.
Finally, a novel program called the Temple Mama Model will pair Temple’s most vulnerable pregnant patients with a perinatal Community Health Worker from their first OB appointment until one year postpartum to provide healthcare navigation and offer connections to social determinants of health programming.
Labor and delivery will no longer occur at Temple University Hospital on Broad and Ontario Streets. All childbirth services will now take place at the new facility located at 1331 East Wyoming Avenue.