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1st
appeared 4 June 1999
Lucile Packard Children's Hospitals Team Up
with Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital
To enhance high-quality care for premature babies and critically ill infants and to allow
them and their families to stay in the community, Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and Lucile
Packard Children's Hospitals (LPCH) are proceeding with an agreement to jointly build and
operate a Level III neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).
The new 18-bed facility will be located in the Family Birth Center at Santa Rosa Memorial
Hospital and will replace the Level II intermediate care unit that currently is operating
there.
The Lucile Packard Children's Intensive Care Nursery at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital will
open in October, 1999 as a Level II nursery. It will become a full-fledged Level III
nursery within the following 18 months. Nursing and technical staff will remain employees
of Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital. Nursing management and the medical director will be
employees of Lucile Packard Children's Hospitals, part of UCSF Stanford Health Care.
A level II hospital nursery provides care for medically stable, premature or sick
newborns. A tertiary care, level III neonatal intensive care nursery provides intensive
care, including respiratory support, to newborns who are at high risk due to prematurity,
illness, surgery or other causes.
"LPCH has entered this partnership as part of our mission to offer medical specialty
services to mothers and children in their own communities," said Samuel Hawgood,
professor of pediatrics at UCSF and chief of the division of neonatology at Lucile Packard
Children's Hospital at UCSF.
For decades, UCSF pediatric specialists have worked with Sonoma County health care
providers to offer specialized outpatient care for sick children. The new nursery will
serve families when babies need tertiary inpatient care. More parents from Sonoma County
and surrounding counties will have the option of seeking care in Santa Rosa, close to
where they live.
Links:
Full UCSF press release
Lucile Packard Children's Hospitals
Source: Janet Basu, News Services |
