Baptist Doctors’ Guest Column Responds to Public PICU Commentary

Dr. Mark J. Heulitt, medical director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Children’s Hospital; and Dr. Miguel Rodriguez, medical director of the Emergency Department of the same hospital, penned an editorial response published in the June 3, 2016 edition of the Commercial Appeal. Reprinted below, the column specifically responds to Le Bonheur’s commentary regarding the PICU announcement as previously published in the Commercial Appeal.

Guest column: New Baptist Children’s Hospital PICU Good for City
By Mark J. Heulitt and Miguel Rodriguez

I read with great interest the May 27 response of Dr. Jon McCullers, chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and Dr. James W. Eubanks III, medical director of trauma services, chief of pediatric surgery and surgeon-in-chief at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital, to the announcement of a new Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Children’s Hospital.

The writers expressed their concern over the safety of our children. I will be the new director for the Baptist pediatric ICU, and along with the input of Dr. Miguel Rodriguez, medical director of the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Children’s Hospital emergency department, I would like to respond to quell those fears.

I have been a pediatric intensivist for 26 years at a major academic children’s hospital and am very familiar with the differences between an academic and nonacademic hospital. Those differences do not lead to a difference in the quality of care delivered to our children. In 2013, an article was published in the Journal of Pediatrics examining 89,000 admissions to the 29 PICUs in the United Kingdom. The author’s conclusions were, “Despite the different characteristics of small units, the absence of any effect of unit size on mortality suggests the number of admissions per unit does not influence standards of care.” (J Pediatr 2013;163:1039-44).

We will be opening a technologically advanced PICU with 12 beds, supported not by only pediatric intensivists, but also all the pediatric subspecialists necessary to care for these critically ill children. All pediatric services are covered 24/7 by attending physicians, most of whom have either trained or worked at Le Bonheur as physicians or subspecialists.

Baptist is a well-established provider of pediatric care, having provided pediatric services since its beginning in 1912, and growing into a major referral center for pediatrics — treating some 90,000 pediatric patients a year. Baptist Children’s Hospital sits on the Baptist complex located in the geographic center of the city, easily accessible from Interstate 240 — a very convenient option for families who live all over Shelby and surrounding counties.

Seventy-five percent of patients treated at the Spence and Becky Wilson Baptist Children’s Hospital emergency department are Medicaid patients. Baptist is well-qualified to treat patients who need services. Since the pediatric emergency department opened in 2015, less than 5 percent of patients have been transferred to a higher level of care — solidifying Baptist’s reputation as a strong pediatric care option.

Boasting a slew of noteworthy services with plans to add more, Baptist has the area’s only comprehensive pediatric eye center — where patients can get the full continuum of care from treatment to surgery to follow-up care without having to travel outside the city. Soon, Baptist will have its own ambulance to transport patients needing a higher level of care to Baptist Children’s Hospital. The ambulance will serve the tri-state area, as well as patients within the city who need to be transported.

The desire to open the PICU is consistent with the mission of the Baptist system to offer quality health care to all children. Memphis is fortunate to have a hospital such as Le Bonheur; however, this does not preclude the need to have another cutting-edge children’s hospital.
Both children’s hospitals are necessary to meet the needs of all children, not to compete, but to complement each other.