CMC, Seattle Childrens Hospital Form Affiliation
Posted by Karen Sullivan on Wednesday March 14, 2007, 7:28 pm
The new affiliation will offer access to Seattle Children’s Hospital specialists for pediatric patients in Western Montana, along with pediatric training and telemedicine opportunities, physician and nurse education, enhanced provider relationships, and streamlined patient referral processes.
With the affiliation, CMC and Seattle Children’s Hospital are working together to develop a pediatric hospitalist program at CMC – hospitalists are physicians who care for inpatients – and conduct recruitment and on-going training of pediatric hospitalist physicians.
“CMC’s Department of Pediatrics and the hospital’s administration are committed to quality care for children,” said Steve Carlson, CMC's president and chief executive officer. “Our goal is to offer, along with our breadth of services, a high-level inpatient pediatric hospitalist service by this spring. Until then, inpatient pediatric care continues to be provided by a combination of Missoula pediatricians and interim hospitalist physicians who are covering CMC’s inpatient pediatric unit.”
CMC is currently detailing for Western Montana healthcare providers what the affiliation means for their patients, Carlson said. CMC’s Referral Center continues to receive referrals and requests for consult from Western Montana pediatric providers, and Western Montana providers also can now access Seattle Children’s Physician Access Line for urgent and non-urgent consultations.
“As a regional center, Children’s Hospital is committed to improving the healthcare of children, including those in Western Montana,” said Sanford Melzer, M.D., MBA, vice president of strategic planning and business development at the Seattle hospital. “We see the collaboration with CMC as an outstanding opportunity to bring our two organizations closer together and ensure that children get the best care, regardless of where they live.”
The affiliation strengthens what is already a core children’s program at CMC. The program includes perinatology, obstetrics, newborn services, lactation consultants, a newborn intensive care unit (NICU), a NICU follow-up clinic, pediatric primary care, pediatric acute care, a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), pediatric rehabilitation, and pediatric surgery, including anesthesiology, neurosurgery, cardiothoracic, orthopaedic and plastic surgery.
Other CMC pediatric services include pediatric air transport through Community CareFlight, trauma services, education and outreach, audiology, cardiology, dentistry, endocrinology, clinical biochemical genetics, medical genetics, pulmonology/allergy, chemical/biochemical genetics, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, rheumatology and urology. The services also include CMC’s Pediatric Specialty Clinic, in which Seattle Children’s physicians will provide services focused on nephrology. Other specialists at the clinic will continue to provide services focused on cleft/craniofacial, cystic fibrosis, endocrinology, medical genetics, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, metabolic services, pulmonology, spasticity/tone management and rheumatology.
With the affiliation, CMC and Seattle Children’s Hospital are working together to develop a pediatric hospitalist program at CMC – hospitalists are physicians who care for inpatients – and conduct recruitment and on-going training of pediatric hospitalist physicians.
“CMC’s Department of Pediatrics and the hospital’s administration are committed to quality care for children,” said Steve Carlson, CMC's president and chief executive officer. “Our goal is to offer, along with our breadth of services, a high-level inpatient pediatric hospitalist service by this spring. Until then, inpatient pediatric care continues to be provided by a combination of Missoula pediatricians and interim hospitalist physicians who are covering CMC’s inpatient pediatric unit.”
CMC is currently detailing for Western Montana healthcare providers what the affiliation means for their patients, Carlson said. CMC’s Referral Center continues to receive referrals and requests for consult from Western Montana pediatric providers, and Western Montana providers also can now access Seattle Children’s Physician Access Line for urgent and non-urgent consultations.
“As a regional center, Children’s Hospital is committed to improving the healthcare of children, including those in Western Montana,” said Sanford Melzer, M.D., MBA, vice president of strategic planning and business development at the Seattle hospital. “We see the collaboration with CMC as an outstanding opportunity to bring our two organizations closer together and ensure that children get the best care, regardless of where they live.”
The affiliation strengthens what is already a core children’s program at CMC. The program includes perinatology, obstetrics, newborn services, lactation consultants, a newborn intensive care unit (NICU), a NICU follow-up clinic, pediatric primary care, pediatric acute care, a pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), pediatric rehabilitation, and pediatric surgery, including anesthesiology, neurosurgery, cardiothoracic, orthopaedic and plastic surgery.
Other CMC pediatric services include pediatric air transport through Community CareFlight, trauma services, education and outreach, audiology, cardiology, dentistry, endocrinology, clinical biochemical genetics, medical genetics, pulmonology/allergy, chemical/biochemical genetics, ophthalmology, otolaryngology, rheumatology and urology. The services also include CMC’s Pediatric Specialty Clinic, in which Seattle Children’s physicians will provide services focused on nephrology. Other specialists at the clinic will continue to provide services focused on cleft/craniofacial, cystic fibrosis, endocrinology, medical genetics, muscular dystrophy, spina bifida, metabolic services, pulmonology, spasticity/tone management and rheumatology.