June 6, 2019

June 6, 2019

          Today, we observed the Mission Children's Hospital in Asheville, which offers cares to eighteen different counties in North Carolina.  As myself and the students with me observed this Children's Hospital, we observed that they are a 130 bed facility that have general pediatrics, pediatric intensive care unit, and a neonatal intensive care unit.  When the nurses are in need of help explaining procedures, they are able to call Child Life to help explain the procedures to the children.  This is somewhat similar to our Children's Hospital back at home in Illinois, but I did notice one thing a little different when observing.  When in the neonatal intensive care unit, when rounding with the parents and nurses about the baby they are caring for, the physicians, respiratory therapist, and nutritionist are at a specific table within the neonatal intensive care unit they sit at to go over all the laboratory results, x-ray findings, nutrition status, and any other results that the physician may go over with the parents of the baby.  The parents are also away from the baby's cribs and rooms, whereas back at home, they are within the baby's rooms talking about them with their families.  I found this very interesting and great that physicians actually sit down and talk to the family about their babies rather than just stepping into the room for five minutes and leaving.  I also really like that within the neonatal intensive care unit, the parents had to wipe their phones, place them in a Ziploc bag, and wash their hands before entering to see their baby.  This is to help prevent infections within the neonatal intensive care unit.  I found this wonderful for this organization.  This organization applies family-centered care by allowing the families to be within the child's rooms when in the hospital and wherever the child was.  These families also have resources such as others family houses they can live at when their child are in the hospitals and they are able to have free food from local restaurants within the living corridors.  Another way that they provide family-centered care is that they provide outpatient services at the Reuter Center.  The Reuter Center has endocrine, neurology, orthopedics, physical therapy, child abuse services, and many more.  This is a great place for families to take their children with problems that they may need help with.  The environment in Asheville is different from Cherokee.  In Asheville, they are able to care for individuals from 18 different counties.  This hospital is also able to deliver babies and has a pediatric unit, pediatric intensive care unit, and neonatal intensive care unit.  They also have a Child Abuse center, which is awesome.  They are able to help the child in a difficult time.  The room is just moving when you enter the room with all the hand prints on the walls of a victims of child abuse.  Whereas Cherokee, an individual that comes to Cherokee Indian Hospital has to be a Cherokee Native American Indian to be an inpatient.  This hospital also does not deliver babies on their campus because they do not have a obstetrician on campus.  I found that today was a great experience seeing a different hospital.  Learning about how they care for their patients and their families, is something that I loved about this hospital!