St. Vincent Evansville and Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at Ascension St. Vincent have collaborated for years to care for the Tri-State’s youth. Providers from both facilities have worked together closely to share best practices among care teams to ensure patients receive the best pediatric care across Indiana. Expanding the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital brand to Evansville will continue to showcase this relationship. 

“I am so proud of the care teams at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at Ascension St. Vincent for their ongoing dedication and for providing exceptional care for children throughout the state and beyond. Indiana has and always will have a special place in my heart, and I am excited about the extension of the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital brand, and pediatric services and offerings in Evansville,” said Peyton Manning, former NFL quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts and Denver Broncos and two-time Super Bowl champion. “The pediatricians and staff should be commended for their commitment to quality, innovation and successful outcomes in pediatric care.” 

Soon, the Evansville community will notice the outpatient and inpatient pediatric facilities and services in Evansville and the surrounding areas will bear the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital logo. 

St. Vincent Evansville and Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital will share processes, policies, and protocols to further enhance the quality of pediatric care across the state. St. Vincent Evansville will continue to provide patients in southwest Indiana with the very best pediatric care locally while enhancing ease of access to much needed pediatric specialty care. 

The statewide pediatric care teams have already been hard at work on this integration. Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital pediatricians specializing in endocrinology and orthopedics host regular clinics in Evansville. The St. Vincent Center for Children in Evansville is home to a full-time Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital pediatric gastroenterologist and a full-time pediatric neurologist as well as a world-renowned feeding program. In addition, the Center for Children is also recruiting for a second gastroenterologist and a pulmonologist, and the center is in the process of establishing a pediatric sleep medicine program. 

“When parents bring their kids to Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, they are entrusting us with the care of their loved ones so they should expect the best of everything — the best doctors, the best nurses, the absolute best,” said Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital President Dr. Hossain M. Marandi. “We are privileged to serve as the pediatric choice for Evansville and are excited about further expanding our specialized services to the community so that children can have greater access to excellent care, closer to home.”

Emergency Room for Children

As part of this statewide collaboration, Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital will open its second emergency room on Aug. 15. The new emergency room for children is located on the campus of St. Vincent Evansville in a separate area, adjacent to the hospital’s existing emergency room. The new space will offer specialized pediatric emergency care closer to home for the residents of the Tri-State.

“As the area’s only hospital verified as a Level II trauma center for both adult and pediatrics, St. Vincent Evansville has a long history of providing patients of all ages with the very best emergency care. With the opening of the new Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital Emergency Room, we are providing even more specialized services and space for our youngest patients,” said Dan Parod, President of the Southern Region for St. Vincent Evansville.

The Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital Emergency Room for Children in Evansville is staffed by nurse practitioners specially-trained in pediatrics, along with board-certified emergency medicine physicians. The team is well prepared to care for children with acute, chronic and complex illnesses. Children treated in the new emergency room will have access to follow-up care by the Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital network of board-certified pediatric subspecialists who can treat some of the more acute and complex conditions and pediatricians who provide primary care for routine health and wellness. 

The newly designed space includes seven private treatment rooms and specialized equipment for the fast delivery of comprehensive emergency care. To reduce anxiety and minimize wait times, X-rays and results from lab tests will be offered to parents inside the emergency room. 

About St. Vincent

In Indiana, Ascension’s St. Vincent operates 24 hospitals in addition to a comprehensive network of affiliated joint ventures, medical practices and clinics serving central and southern Indiana and employs more than 15,000 associates. Across the state, St. Vincent provided more than $323 million in community benefit and care of persons living in poverty in the fiscal year 2018. Serving Indiana for 145 years, Ascension is a faith-based healthcare organization committed to delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable. As one of the leading non-profit and Catholic health systems in the U.S, Ascension operates more than 2,600 sites of care – including 151 hospitals and more than 50 senior living facilities – in 21 states and the District of Columbia. Visit www.stvincent.org. 

About Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at Ascension St. Vincent

Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital (PMCH) is a full service, dedicated children’s medical center, providing the highest quality, family-centered care to children and adolescents in the state of Indiana and beyond. PMCH has more than 160 licensed beds, which include a 23-bed pediatric intensive care unit, 17-bed Pediatric Emergency Department and a 97-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) – the largest Level IV NICU in Indiana, providing the highest level of acute care, as established by the American Academy of Pediatrics. PMCH treats patients from all over the state, providing safe and streamlined critical care transport by ambulance and air. The hospital offers 24-hour on-site coverage by pediatric hospitalists, intensivists, neonatologists, and board-certified emergency physicians. PMCH is staffed by more than 100 experienced pediatric sub-specialists along with pediatric nurses, social workers, child life specialists, chaplains, and other health professionals with a multidisciplinary and collaborative approach to family-focused care. PMCH is part of Ascension, one of the leading non-profit and Catholic health systems in the United States. 

 Key Facts About Unique Pediatric Service Offerings In Evansville:

• Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) – 31-bed capacity
• Perinatal Intensive Care Unit (PICU) – seven beds
• Pediatric inpatient room – 22-bed capacity 
• Center for Children, which serves as a comprehensive outpatient care facility onsite
• Integrated psychology onsite at St. Vincent Evansville Center for Children
• Registered outpatient dietitian that integrates with pediatric specialists 
• Pediatric neurology
• Pediatric orthopedics
• Resource Center that offers support groups, access to medical resources and to assist families with health care and other personal needs
• Internationally recognized and award-winning pediatric feeding program
• Level II Certified Trauma Center
• Double board-certified pediatric neonatologists available 24/7 for children 
• Emergency Room for Children 
• Pediatric Diabetes Access Clinic 
• Pediatric sensory playground for therapeutic service

 

Commentary: They Who Help Also Serve

By John Krull
TheStatehouseFile.com 

FOREST PARK, Illinois – The warriors trade jokes over the lunch table.

I’m at the Blind Rehabilitation Center on the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Administration Hospital campus. About 35 veterans ranging in age from 23 to 96, all with limited or no vision, take their mid-day meals here in the dining room.

John Krull, publisher, TheStatehouseFile.com

The conversation is loud and lively. At the table where I sit, jokes fly about former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who’s serving a 14-year prison sentence on bribery and corruption charges. President Donald Trump has been making noises about pardoning Blagojevich.

The guys at the table are less concerned about the possible pardon than they are about the sheer idiocy of the former governor’s offense – trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat over a phone line he knew was likely to be tapped.

“Ought to be a special prison for someone that stupid,” a Desert Storm vet named Dave says.

Dave and the other vets in the dining room are here for stays that can last between a month and two months. They learn how to cope as their sight fails them.

“It’s amazing the things they teach you here,” Dave says.

I learn that firsthand by sampling some of the instruction.

A young woman who specializes in teaching strategies and techniques to maintain mobility has me put on a blindfold. Then she shows me how to guide a “traveler” – a person with limited or no sight – on a walk.

The guide touches the traveler on the back of the hand, then allows the traveler to reach up and grip the guide just above the elbow. As the young woman walks me through the center, she explains what the guide should do to make the journey easier for the traveler: talk about what’s going on around them, but do it in a matter-of-fact, low-key way. Then she shows me how to form a single file in a crowded space by stretching her arm behind her and allowing me, the traveler, to slide my grip down to her wrist and step behind her.

All the while, she explains, with seemingly infinite patience, why we’re doing what we’re doing.

As she guides me, blindfolded, through this strange place, I think how unnerving it must be for these vets not to be able to see what’s around them.

And how reassuring it must be to have someone show them how they can continue to move through the world.

At another point, a young man leads me, blindfolded again, through a memory and dexterity drill. As I try to make out the shapes my fingers touch, he, too, talks to me about how vets with impaired or no vision can figure out different ways to cope.

Like the young woman, he, too, teaches with a soft voice and an easy manner. When I get something wrong, he just tells me that practice will make it better and will make me feel more confident.

We Americans talk a lot about all the ways the government can fail us.

Evidence of those failures is all around us. But that is the case with any institution or enterprise made up of human beings – which is to say, all of them.

The VA has drawn its share of criticism in recent years. Much of that criticism has been valid.

But those failures shouldn’t obscure the larger story. The people here work hard to make life a little more manageable for other human beings who devoted a portion of their lives to defend us and our nation.

The staff members here don’t make massive salaries. They do the work because they care about people and want to help them.

Near the end of the day, another staffer stops to say goodbye to a vet who is checking out and going home. She tells the vet she’s enjoyed working with him and then gives him a hug.

“Thank you for your service to our country,” she says as they embrace.

And I think Same to you.

FOOTNOTE: John Krull is the director of Franklin College’s Pulliam School of Journalism and publisher of TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalism students.