St. Joseph’s Women’s Medical Center in downtown Houston recently cut the ribbon on its newly renovated neonatal intensive care unit. The renovations were a result of a partnership agreement with Texas Children’s Hospital which extends our neonatal care to the downtown hospital. The project cleared the way for state of the art support devices critical for the care of medically fragile infants. Just as important, it improved the environment for the patient and families in ways that have been shown to improve outcomes for critically ill infants.
“This partnership is critical to our overall regional strategy of ensuring the best care is available within reach for babies not just at Texas Children’s Hospital, but across the area,” said Dr. Stephen Welty, chief of neonatology. “We work closely with excellent nurseries in the community to promote the same quality and care standards followed in our level IV NICU.”
Texas Children’s provides St. Joseph’s with administrative and clinical support, giving patients access to the latest treatments available in neonatal and pediatric care, state-of-the-art equipment and pediatric sub specialists. That includes cardiology, neurology, infectious disease, ophthalmology and more.
St. Joseph’s is the seventh hospital in the Greater Houston community affiliated with our NICU. The others include Methodist West Houston Hospital, Methodist Willowbrook Hospital, Methodist San Jacinto Hospital, The Methodist Hospital, St. Luke’s The Woodlands Hospital and St. Luke’s Hospital at the Vintage. The partnerships also mean in the relatively rare circumstances when level IV care is necessary, the patients will be transferred to Texas Children’s Hospital.
“At Texas Children’s Hospital, our mission to build a healthy community of children begins at the very start of life,” said Cris Daskevich, senior vice president of Texas Children’s Pavilion for Women. “Our relationship with St. Joseph’s allows us to partner in providing exceptional neonatal care to the premature and critically-ill infants that need it most, so that babies can have the best possible outcomes.”