1:15pm | By Divya Joshi, MD MMM CPE FAAP | The modern Hippocratic Oath is one of the guiding principles of the medical profession. Among its core tenets are to remember to practice warmth, sympathy and understanding, respect patient privacy, and share knowledge with future generations.
There isn’t a second oath that pediatric doctors take when it comes to caring for children, but most any parent would suggest to us that finding ways to treat their children more expeditiously and reducing the number of separate trips and office visits would be high on the list.
As the largest children’s medical center in California, our team at Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach serves a growing population of children who have increasingly complex health problems. As the Long Beach community knows, we recently completed an 8-year expansion project at Miller Children’s that included the renovation of our clinic, construction of our state-of-the-art hospital pavilion, and creation of the Jonathan Jaques Children’s Cancer Center floor. While we expect this will meet the needs of our hospitalized children for years to come, our next care challenge is finding ways to serve the children who need to go to the doctor without being hospitalized.
The cruel reality of being a child with a chronic illness is that your weeks are filled with health care appointments. Most children we see are cared for by more than three medical doctors and specialists. Add to that a regular routine of blood draws, CT scans, X-rays and other diagnostic appointments and the number of separate visits parent and child make annually can be staggering. In the profession, these precious children are known affectionately as “frequent flyers.”
Currently, our young “frequent flyers” have to travel between various Long Beach locations to see their doctors and specialists – some in our ground-floor clinics, some elsewhere on our Long Beach Memorial campus, some in nearby Atlantic Ave. medical buildings, and even some adjacent to Community Hospital Long Beach. We know that commuting is difficult enough for the healthy, but imagine being a parent transporting your child who may need a wheelchair or may be feeling sick, from parking lot to parking lot several days a month!
To better support our growing outpatient population, Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach is committing to develop a state-of-the-art Pediatric Medical Village. This new medical “village” will house primary care physicians, specialists, dental care professionals, blood draw facilities and imaging, and other health care services that are required by children with chronic illnesses, all in one location.
Having a dedicated building will enable our children to conduct virtually all of their necessary medical and diagnostic appointments under one roof. In addition to improving the access for families, we also will be able to improve upon the collaboration between a child’s various health care professionals by scheduling appointments under a common system.
As the planning process for the Pediatric Medical Village has been formally initiated, one of the immediate concerns to address is location. Through discussions with our physicians and nurses, it became clear that the Village should be located in close proximity to Miller Children’s Hospital Long Beach in order to provide our patients with direct access to the advanced imaging capabilities and pharmacy services we offer on campus. This location also will benefit our professionals by allowing doctors to see children in their Pediatric Medical Village offices and then have quick access to the hospital.
Over the next few months, as we explore various location options, we also will be getting further input from our outpatient community and the families of our “frequent flyers” to help ensure that we effectively meet their needs. For in our world, it takes a child to raise a village.