As a parent, you do everything possible to keep your babies safe and healthy. But life happens – accidents and illnesses happen. Sometimes you need to rely on our community’s resources to help ensure your kid receives the best access to people who can ensure they are comfortable, cared for, and on a road to recovery. Luckily, here in Cleveland, we have University Hospital Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital to help keep our babies safe and healthy. Explore a little more about what makes them one of the nation’s top pediatric hospitals right here.
The story of University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital began over 135 years ago when a group of nine young women from prominent and wealthy families came together to form the Rainbow Circle of King’s Daughters, a national sisterhood whose mission was “to perfect determination to relieve suffering.” Their goal was to provide sick children with a place to recover from illness.
Today, the Rainbow Babies & Children Foundation is the organization that supports the hospital. Its Board of Trustees is still run entirely by women. These 38 women volunteer their time as steadfast stewards of the foundation’s endowment.
Today, the award-winning Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital is still devoted to serving the children and families of Cleveland who need medical care. With a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), and a Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center, they can help as many children as possible with state-of-the-art technology, highly skilled physicians, nurses, and specialists, and a passion for healing some of the most vulnerable members of our community: kids.
Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital is a vast network of people dedicated to caring for and helping heal babies and kids. The hospital has 244 beds and is home to a network of 850 pediatric specialists across 40 special care centers, including Centers of Excellence in oncology, neonatology, neurology, and endocrinology.
The hospital is a teaching affiliate of Case Western Reserve University. It trains over 100 pediatricians annually and regularly ranks among the top hospitals in research funding from the National Institutes of Health. This means it’s a hospital always growing, learning, and researching. Hence, their patients have access to the most up-to-date and innovative treatments.
Again, as a parent, you hope your child never has to set foot in a hospital. Still, life is full of unexpected twists and turns, and when your child does need special care, having a hospital like Rainbow Babies and Children’s in our community is a Godsend. Their advanced technologies allow them to take X-Rays and treat pediatric cancers with less radiation, lessening the risk of long-term side effects.
Their specialists can perform complex surgeries like spine repair, cardiac interventions (including fetal cardiac intervention), and more. In their NICU facility, skin-to-skin contact is encouraged for enhanced parent-infant bonding. Their Occupational and Speech Therapies use advanced techniques with a compassionate approach.
Additionally, they incorporate a variety of approaches to help their patients heal with comfort and joy. Creative casting helps pediatric patients heal broken bones with fun and artistic casts that they won’t mind showing off. Pet therapy provides comfort and support through friendly, specially trained animals that bring plenty of smiles and snuggles.
Angie’s Rooftop Garden is a natural refuge for patients to get some fresh air and take advantage of their specialized horticultural therapy program. UH Rainbow Provides plenty of ways for kids to find a few extra smiles throughout their hospital stay.
UH Rainbow ranks among the nation’s top 50 children’s hospitals in 9 different medical and surgical specialties, including:
These consider several objective measures, including patient outcomes (mortality and infection rates), health equity and available clinical resources, and compliance with best practices. Furthermore, these incredible rankings only prove how lucky we are to have a resource like UH Rainbow in our community.
I hope your child never has to step foot inside a pediatric hospital, but if they do, I hope you find comfort in knowing UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital is here to help.
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