Shriners Hospitals for Children–Los Angeles Approved to Build a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)

Shriners Hospitals for Children – Los Angeles (SHC-LA) does not have a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). Consequently, a local children’s hospital has been utilized for planned and un-planned patient cases requiring a higher level of care.

Unfortunately, we have recently been informed that we will no longer be able to transfer our patients to this local children’s hospital as they have exceeded 100% of their capacity for inpatient care. This has severely impacted our ability to reduce our current backlog of over 500 surgical cases - some of which will require this PICU support. SHC-LA surgeons have also expressed concern for being able to maintain their surgical proficiency at a non-PICU capable hospital.

Due to these issues, the hospital has received approval to build a four bed PICU at SHC-LA from our Corporate Headquarters. The targeted opening date of this new unit is scheduled for the spring of 2009.

Construction of a PICU will allow SHC-LA to continue to provide services to patients
requiring a higher level of post-surgical care while maintaining superior patient safety.

This is in perfect alignment with the Shriners Hospitals for Children vision, mission and strategic plan. A SHC-LA PICU will also assist with the retention and recruitment of skillful pediatric orthopaedic surgeons along with the enhancement of present and future capabilities of the hospital. It will allow us to increase the number of complex surgeries performed at SHC-LA without the use of expensive transfers to other pediatric hospitals.

Two of the hospital’s multi-bed patient rooms and an isolation room are planned to be
renovated into the four bed PICU. The types of cases that will benefit from this onsite PICU care include: spinal fusion surgeries, toe-to-hand transfers and other cases with complications that require intensive monitoring. SHC-LA performs 70 spinal operations per year. Because our post-operative capabilities are limited, our spinal surgeons perform about 12 of these cases at outside pediatric facilities. We also send out approximately four cases per year with postoperative difficulties that we cannot currently manage in-house. In addition, we have been forced to deny care to some children who will need post-operative care because we are unable to provide the sophisticated medical management that is needed.

The cost savings of bringing these surgeries in-house will be substantial. The cost to
SHC-LA to treat a PICU patient at an outside pediatric facility is over $7,000 per day. On average, this resulted in total charges of over $210,000 per patient! A PICU at SHC-LA would cost only $4,600 per day resulting in a savings to the hospital of over $330,000 annually.
The unit will be built according to the State of California Department of Health Services and the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) standards specifications and requirements.
It will be supported by pediatric intensive care trained nurses, respiratory therapists
and intensivist physicians. This specially trained team will provide the care and oversight for the patients of the PICU 24 hours a day. The expected length of stay for these patients in intensive care is anticipated to be between two to three days.

Based on approval by local and State of California agencies, the first steps in this process will be to proceed with design and construction bids, apply for permits and then begin construction and other renovation tasks. Equipment will then need to be purchased and installed.

If you are interested in learning how to support SHC-LA in its efforts to raise funds for this much needed service, please contact Jon Dellaria at (213) 368-3394.