Cherokee --> Asheville!

Today during our travels, we were privileged enough to go to Mission Hospital in Asheville North Carolina. Mission has one of the most impressive pediatric departments in the country. Along with a large pediatric unit, Mission hospital is also equipped with 50 beds in their NICU and 10 beds in their PICU. According to Mission Hospital (2015), “Mission Children’s Hospital has 130 beds, averages 3,000 patient admissions to its pediatric inpatient units, 4,500 outpatient pediatric surgeries and nearly 14,000 pediatric emergency department visits annually” (Mission Health 2015). What stood out to me the most today however, was the staff in the NICU. I was fortunate enough to be given a tour of the NICU by the most passionate nurse I have ever met. Her passion for caring for babies was so strong and left no doubt in my mind that she was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing with her life. All of the staff I experienced while being at Mission hospital was all in love with their jobs and making a difference in young lives. In my past healthcare experience, I have been exposed to hospitals with small pediatric departments. The pediatric department at Methodist hospital is only a maximum of 4 beds, compared to the 130 beds at Mission hospital. However, one similarity witnessed within Mission and Methodist hospital is the use of child life specialists for their pediatric patients. Although Mission has a more broad staff range of usage for child life team members, both hospitals use these specialists to provide pediatric patients with forms of distraction to limit anxiety and fear during their time in the hospital. Another healthcare experience gained this week came from Cherokee Indian hospital where their pediatric unit essentially serves as a doctor’s office. There are multiple different pods within a section of the hospital that are filled with different doctor’s and nurse practitioners to see pediatric patients from newborn to eighteen years old.

Child life provides medical toys for children to play with to lower anxiety before procedures. 

If a family is experiencing a situation in which case their child has to be hospitalized, it can be difficult for that family to cope with both emotionally and financially. Moreover, some families may have more than one child and could be dealing with trying to care for both or multiple children while the hospitalized child is away from the family. It can cause strain on all family members during this time, especially the parents who may need to return to work to help cover the costs of the healthcare treatment their child is receiving. While at Mission hospital, they showed us a unique resource that is provided to families who may have a child admitted to the NICU. When a child is transfer from the NICU to the PICU at Mission hospital, that child is placed in a room large enough for the child and for the parents to comfortably stay in until the child is ready to be discharged home. This gives families that time to transition from hospital to home life while being able to as questions that they may be having.

The hallways within the pediatric unit of Mission hospital were named by the patients and their families to be more appealing to young patients. 

After visiting both Cherokee and Mission hospital, it can be related back to the town I grew up in and the town I live in currently. Sherrard is an extremely small town of 600 people while Peoria is a town of close to 150,000. Cherokee is a small town of 12,000 compared to 88,000 people living in Asheville North Carolina. The environment of Asheville is set to more of a large scale. There are multiple clinics, physicians, treatment options, and overall options for people to seek out when wanting healthcare within Asheville North Carolina. On the other hand, people within Cherokee only have one option for healthcare, the Cherokee Indian Hospital. They have multiple different departments within one hospital such as dental, pharmacy, and radiology. The environment of Cherokee Indian hospital is set to meet the needs of their smaller scale community.

Reference 

Mission Health. (2015). Our Mission Begins Here. Retrieved from http://www.missionchildrens.org/