Forever Changing Pediatric Health Care across Our Region
Billings, Montana, Thursday, September 18, 2008 – Today marks a new day for pediatric health care across our community, state and region. St. Vincent Healthcare announces the creation and implementation of St. Vincent Children’s Healthcare-- a commitment to the immediate and long-term health needs of the children in our region. As of October 1, 2008, St. Vincent Children’s Healthcare will be in full operation.
Taking Pediatric Care to the Next Level:
Over the past eight months, programs critical to St. Vincent Healthcare pediatrics, emergency pediatrics and pediatric intensive care have undergone a powerful transformation from within. As a result, St. Vincent Children’s Healthcare now has in place, beginning October 1st, Montana’s only Pediatric Intensive Care physicians. These physicians will take our region’s pediatric care to a new level, providing critical care for our very sick and injured children 24 hours a day, seven days a week. These specially trained pediatric intensivists and hospitalists have been working with our pediatricians and pediatric specialists for months. And they’ve been training with our certified pediatric nurses and other clinical specialists working hard to emerge St. Vincent Children’s Healthcare, truly meeting the needs of our region’s children and families.
The Pediatric Intensive Care physicians will take our dedicated pediatric emergency department and pediatric intensive care unit to a new level. The intensivists will work closely with our community and regional pediatricians and physicians as well as our pediatric experts in cardiology, gastroenterology, general and plastic surgery, neonatology, orthopedics, psychiatry, urology and pediatric outpatient rehabilitation.
While thousands of pediatric patients from an expansive three-state area are expertly treated at hospitals across Montana, facility and clinical gaps force us to send many who require critical or long term health care out of state because pediatric critical care is not in place to monitor and deliver that important care. For the few children that must be transported out of state for specialty surgical services, the intensive care physicians will fill the gap to bring those kids home to our communities for rehabilitation and further healing.
Each year, hundreds of children are flown to dedicated children’s hospitals in Denver or Salt Lake City for care. Costly transports uproot families during critical medical emergencies and take children far from their homes, their families and the communities that support them while they heal.
St. Vincent Children’s Healthcare and The Montana Pediatric Project:
St. Vincent Children’s Healthcare and what it offers to our state and surrounding areas, is our hospital’s first and most key contribution to The Montana Pediatric Project.
The Montana Pediatric Project is established to improve access to, and the quality of, pediatric health care throughout Montana and beyond.
The Montana Pediatric Project will work to provide:
• Training for remote hospitals on how to handle pediatric trauma
• Telemedicine services to support pediatric cases across the state
• Education for parents and teachers to treat everyday injuries
• A forum for medical professionals to work together to heal children
• Clinical research focused on key pediatric health issues
• Ongoing medical education for healthcare providers across the state
“The establishment of this project represents a lasting commitment to our children, which can only be possible through a partnership with philanthropists, hospitals, medical professionals and community leaders throughout the region,” said David Irion, Executive Director of the St. Vincent Foundation. “Our kids are blessed to live in an area of the country that promotes a healthy and active lifestyle, and it’s our responsibility to make sure they stay healthy and have access to the best medical care possible should they ever need it.”
The combination of St. Vincent Children’s Healthcare and The Montana Pediatric Project will help accomplish our goal to heal our kids closer to home. It will build partnerships with hospitals and medical experts across the state, help us use the best pediatric medical resources our state has available, and will ensure if our children must leave their own hospitals, they can come here and then return home to heal in their own communities.
St. Vincent Healthcare is proud of its long history of and commitment to delivering the best, most compassionate healthcare to the Billings community and this region. The hospital’s dedication to providing the utmost in quality and excellence has led to improved healthcare experiences for the community and its children… to Heal Here.