NEW: Women & Infants Among Best Hospitals in Neonatology, Says US News
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island has been ranked 34th in Neonatology in U.S. News Media Group’s 2011-12 Best Children’s Hospitals rankings of the top 50 centers in the nation.
“We salute Women & Infants Hospital,” said Health Rankings Editor Avery Comarow. “The goal of the Best Children’s Hospitals rankings is to call attention to pediatric centers with the expertise to help the sickest kids, and Women & Infants Hospital is one of those centers.”
In July, Women & Infants was ranked 26th in Gynecology in U.S. News & World Report’s 2010-11 Best Hospitals. Earlier this spring, Women & Infants was ranked number one in the Providence metro area (including Providence and Pawtucket, RI, and Fall River and New Bedford, MA) in U.S. News & World Report’s first ever Best Hospitals metro area rankings, and a regional Best Hospital in Cancer and Gynecology.
“The care that we provide not only to full-term newborns, but also to the tiniest, frailest infants, is extraordinary, and we are so proud to have that level of care acknowledged,” said Constance A. Howes, president and CEO of Women & Infants Hospital. “This continued recognition, now being named a Best Children’s Hospital in Neonatology, gives the general and the health care community the reassurance of the high quality, compassionate care that is provided each and every day here at Women & Infants Hospital.”
Nine thousand babies
As the birthing place to nearly 9,000 babies each year, Women & Infants cares for newborns from the edges of viability to full-term newborns, in the hospital and after discharge. In collaboration with colleagues in pediatric surgery and all of the pediatric subspecialties at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, Women & Infants provides care for sophisticated, complex problems of high-risk newborns born throughout southern New England. Babies born at Women & Infants represent 73% of those born in Rhode Island each year, as well as many from southeastern Massachusetts and eastern Connecticut.
In 2009, Women & Infants opened the nation’s largest single-family room neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) to provide the best possible care in the best possible environment for critically ill newborns.
The single-family room NICU
“The single-family room NICU expands the field of neonatology from ‘survival’ to ‘quality of life,’” said James F. Padbury, MD, pediatrician-in-chief at Women & Infants, and the Oh-Zopfi Professor of Pediatrics for Perinatal Research at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. “Women & Infants’ new NICU is a developmentally sensitive unit that promises to enhance infant growth and development by allowing us to adjust the noise, light, temperature and medical interventions in each room based on each patient’s need. We believe that controlling the environment will decrease dependence on respiratory support, decrease the incidence of complications, improve weight gain, shorten the hospital stay, and improve the infant’s developmental outcome. Moreover, we anticipate the greatest impact on the smallest, most fragile infants.”
For the full rankings and methodology, visit www.usnews.com/childrenshospitals.
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