An expanded pediatrics department at Carle Hospital will now include a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit opening in April.
Carle this week revealed the renovated space at the Urbana facility, which will include rooms for 12 PICU patients. The impetus for the addition: Carle has experienced a rapid and prolific increase in pediatric ICU cases.
“We transported in (1,057) children last year, and in the month of December alone had to turn away over 30 children in one month because we didn’t have adequate space,” said Kayla Banks, Carle vice president of Women’s Services, Pediatrics and Quality. “We are more and more being seen as the regional leader in pediatric care.”
Previously children were cared for in the adult ICU, “mostly because historically our volume has not been that high to support a separate pediatric ICU space,” Banks said. “But we’ve seen over the last 18 months or so, that trend is definitely changing.”
The PICU serves the most serious cases, like those that require total breathing support or more intense medications, as well as children and teens experiencing organ dysfunction.
The PICU will be housed on the same floor as Carle’s inpatient pediatrics unit, which will allow for children to receive “all three levels of pediatric (care) in one space,” Banks said. That will facilitate a continuity of care relative to staffing, resources and space, along with an increased comfort for families of patients.
“Carle made a deliberate decision to improve what was already very good pediatric care at the hospital even better, and keep families and kids together as much as possible,” said David Chan, Carle’s medical director of pediatrics and a pediatric cardiologist.
Accompanying the increased emphasis on physical structure is an on-going recruitment of pediatric staff, Chan said.
In addition to Chan’s arrival as the pedes cardiologist, Carle has added a pediatric endocrinologist, an in-house pediatric surgeon, a neurology epileptologist and, this fall, a pediatric hematologist and a full-time sleep specialist.