Day 6: Mission Children's Hospital

Today, we visited Mission Children’s Hospital. Mission is a 130-bed, only children’s hospital that cares for children until age 18, sometimes longer in special circumstances. Afterwards, we went down the road to visit Reuter Family Outpatient, a clinic that houses every possible service children and their families might need, including orthopedics, endocrine, neurology, and radiology, to name a few. Both the clinic and the children’s hospital service 18 surrounding counties, which blew my mind. Today, what stood out to me most was the obvious love that everyone at Mission had for their jobs. Seeing everyone so excited about being at Mission and wanting more than anything to help the children was infectious.

When looking back at the experience, I can’t help but think about how the children’s hospital here compares to our pediatric offerings back home. I have never had the opportunity to visit the children’s hospital at OSF, but when comparing Mission to Methodist, the size difference is extreme. At Methodist, there are only five pediatric beds compared to the 130 at Mission. The children’s hospital in Ashville also includes several different specialty units, including Pediatrics, NICU, and PICU.

Through touring the children’s hospital, we were also able to see how they are continuously implementing change to promote best patient outcomes. When parents enter the unit, they are required to not only wash their hands, but wipe off their cellphones and place them into a plastic bag to avoid spreading germs. It was also noted that parent satisfaction was decreasing when it came to the way rounding was being performed. In the NICU specifically, the entire healthcare team used to come to the bedside, and it seemed to be very overwhelming for families to have such a large group of people in such a small space. In hopes to increase patient satisfaction, the unit decided they would try something new. Instead of rounding at the bedside, they began bringing the child’s entire healthcare team and the parents to sit around a table to talk, which the parents have seemed to like tremendously.

Hospitalization can be extremely difficult for children and their families. They often have multiple barriers to overcome, including driving long distances to the hospital, having other children they must care for, and balancing their daily life with the desire to be there for their child. To help families during these times, Mission offers a variety of services. Not only do they offer sleep rooms within the hospital, there is a lodge not far from the hospital that families can stay in if they live out of town. The lodge has four different wings, one designated especially for pediatric families so they can be together and bond with one another.

After visiting both Cherokee and Ashville, I feel they were similar, but there were also notable differences. Both towns were very well kept and had numerous restaurants and shops to visit. The population was obviously different, as well as the culture. In Cherokee, the people are given mostly everything for free, unlike the people in Ashville.