Heritage Snapshot: Part 93

Children hospitalized in the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital may play with their own toys. In addition, units have pedal-cars, wagons, tricycles and other fun vehicles in which to roam the hallways. A little Nintendo expert challenges a chaplain. Nurses become little patients’ friends. In addition to bedside nursing, they snuggle children who need comforting or hold little ones while charting at the nurses’ desk. In a support group, young cancer patients learn from each other what to expect. Teenage cancer patients sometimes tell jokes about their doctors. Pre-operative education is a prime concern. Child-life specialists operate a playroom in each unit. Sometimes they illustrate procedures with stuffed animals. It is a “safe zone” where needles and medical procedures are not allowed. In order to provide cost effective services, the medical center shared already existing services with the children’s hospital. The only new services established were those that were necessary to meet the unique needs of children. Patients moved into the five-story, 240,000 square-foot Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital on Dec. 14, 1993. The first patient was a little boy recovering from heart transplant surgery. Under the inspiration of Naomi E. Pitman, MD, Chul C. Cha, MD, and Joyce L. Peabody, MD, officials designed a new neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) including amenities to afford infants and staff a quiet environment. Numerous windows help provide an open and light atmosphere. Counseling offices within the unit provide privacy for neonatologists and social workers as they confer with parents. Facilities include a room where parents, before taking their baby home, can spend the night and learn any special care techniques their little one may need. Additionally, by joining research efforts with clinical specialties, the Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital positioned itself to handle a wide variety of critically ill, premature or injured patients. Now licensed for 84 patients, the NICU is one of the most advanced, most intelligently-designed facilities in the world. The children’s hospital provides a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit for older children. It has become one of the busiest PICU centers in the nation, dealing with approximately 1,700 intensive-care admissions a year. Including intermediate-care patients, the unit served well over 2,200 patients last year. To enhance patient-care outcomes, the PICU distinguished itself by improving pre-hospital care. One of the major challenges facing sick and injured children is that they often do not receive proper care until arriving on the unit. During that time, their condition can deteriorate even further. To improve paramedic and emergency care for pediatric trauma cases throughout inland Southern California, PICU staff teaches paramedic courses at Crafton Hills College, Yucaipa, as well as in emergency medicine at the School of Medicine. When the Proton Treatment Center opened in 1990, the children’s hospital became the only one in the world to have access to the most sophisticated form of radiation therapy available. It treats children with brain tumors. Because protons can be focused on these tumors with sub-millimeter precision, less of the surrounding tissue is impacted, and outcome is much more favorable. On March 9, 1992, the medical center opened its new TotalCare Birth Center. The unit contains 10 labor-delivery-recovery rooms that have been designed for patient privacy in a homelike atmosphere. With the exception of those who require a caesarean section in the former labor and delivery area, mothers stay in one room throughout their hospitalization. Depending on the mother’s wishes, family members and/or friends may attend the birthing process or any portion of it. The medical center has equipped the TotalCare Birth Center to handle high-risk deliveries, when necessary. If a problem arises with either mother or baby, attendants access the emergency equipment available in each room. “If we have a really high-risk baby,” Nurse-Manager Barbara Ninan said, “we will call a team from the neonatal intensive care unit — a physician, nurse, and respiratory therapist. They will be here in seconds.” A red phone at the nurses’ station doesn’t even have to be dialed. When the receiver is picked up, the telephone automatically rings the nearby NICU. To prepare parents for the birthing experience, the TotalCare Birth Center offers classes that provide information about pre-birth care, the birth experience, and follow-up care of the mother and baby. While hospitalized, mothers can access a closed-circuit television channel to view a variety of programs (also available in Spanish). These include breast-feeding, care of the newborn, bathing the baby, car-seat safety, and instructions on what to do when the infant gets sick. On July 10, 2002, Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital increased its pediatric emergency department capacity from seven beds to 18. Complete with state-of-the-art cardiac monitors at every bedside, a new, high-speed CT scanner, the facility includes a special room with negative airflow to isolate contagious patients. In 2007, it was one of only 13 Level I pediatric trauma centers in the nation. The hospital transports more than 700 trauma patients a year by ambulance or Mercy Air Helicopters. Since the children’s hospital opened on Dec. 14, 1993, the Pediatric Emergency Department has increased its annual patient count from 9,000 to 19,000. Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital is the only facility in the county of San Bernardino to have pediatric trauma physicians available 24 hours a day. In 2009 Loma Linda University Children’s Hospital became the first children’s hospital in America to be awarded the coveted “Baby-Friendly” designation from Baby-Friendly USA, the national authority of the Baby-Friendly Health Initiative in the United States. The Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative is a global program sponsored by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund to encourage and recognize hospitals that offer an optimal level of care for lactation. During the awards ceremony, San Bernardino County Supervisor Gary Ovitt, who then chaired the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, noted that the Inland Empire is now officially “the ‘Baby-friendliest’ region of the United States.”