The award-winning Children's Hospital in Aurora, Colorado is every bit as excellent as the US News & World Report and Parents magazine have claimed.
Patient care is an important aspect of the Children's Hospital — and not just that of the child. Inside its facility (as well as its 13 other sister locations), there exists Family Hospitality Suites with sleeping rooms, washers, dryers and a kitchenette, playrooms on every floor, a wellness-health center, a teen lounge and a family health library where family members can further learn and gather information regarding their loved one's illness. The experience is made as comfortable as possible, as the people behind the Children's Hospital know how difficult, stressful and trying the situation can be for everyone involved.
The immune system and infectious disease, the brain and spinal cord system, the liver and pancreas and behavior development are just a few of the many areas that the hospital treats and tends to. It also offers extra services involving child abuse cases and feeding and swallowing.
While it is obviously concerned with the healthcare that it offers, what may set the Children's Hospital apart from other similar ones around the country is the fact that it puts a heavy emphasis on research and advocacy, which is essentially the bread and butter of the future of medicine and child healthcare. For every kid they care for, they seek to prevent another from ever having to enter. "We are working towards a world where kids are safer and healthier and will one day have less need for a hospital."
Much of their efforts to influence healthy policy issues are directed through and rely on the strength of The Children's Hospital Grassroots Network, consisting of over four thousand people—including physicians, healthcare professionals, business leaders, patients and their families—who speak up loudly when public policy decisions involving kids are made.
Originally founded in 1908, the hospital now sees more young ones than any other facility in the seven-state region, and has become a trailblazer in providing the best healthcare options for children — its central mission for over a century. According to its staff, this means "less invasive treatment, less time and less stress on you and your children."
With its state-of-the-art technology, specialized departments and more than 1,000 pediatric specialists, 3,000 full-time employees, the Children's hospital has continuously given an oath to work tirelessly and fervently on behalf of the well-being of their little patients.
Highlights
- Affiliated with the University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine (as well as many other internationally recognized medical/surgical programs), the Children's Hospital operates as a teaching hospital, where it is at the forefront of pediatric research.
- Events such as Day at the Capitol bring hospital advocates along on specialized tours of the State Capitol, introducing them to legislators, while others like Be a Champ for Children! workshops teach participants basic advocacy strategies.
- In 2008, Parents magazine recognized the hospital as one of the US' "top pediatric hospitals."
- In 2009, the Children’s Hospital was ranked by U.S. News & World Report in the Honor Roll as one of the nation’s ten best pediatric hospitals in the US.
Photograph by Jeffrey Beall via Flickr
