Pulmonary habilitation program
Frequently, children with serious or long-term illnesses also have breathing-related needs. Typically, they need ventilator machines to help them breathe, sometimes for months or years. Even so, these children often become medically stable enough to be safely cared for at home on their ventilators.
Typically, these youngsters come from neonatal or pediatric intensive care units throughout the Midwest, and they find their way to Children’s Memorial Hospital for help in going home on a ventilator. Children are eligible for our program if they meet the following criteria: they are medically stable for home care, family members want to take child home and are willing to learn child’s care, and the child has housing that can accommodate the ventilator.
The goal of the program is to return children to their homes and keep them as active as possible in family, school and community activities. Families are provided with some home nursing support in order to help them with their child’s care. The staff members’ expertise in mechanical ventilation, their understanding of technical issues, their ability to coordinate the complex process for going home and their excellent grasp of families’ needs in this potentially frightening venture are what makes Children’s Memorial the hospital of choice for complex long-term breathing-related needs.
The pulmonary habilitation program currently coordinates the care of more than 50 children at home on ventilator support. Services include the 6-bed inpatient Transitional Care Unit (TCU) and outpatient pulmonary and pulmonary habilitation clinics. The program manages ventilator care for some of the most complex cases in the greater Chicago metropolitan area. Directed by Zehava Noah, MD, with assistance from nurse practitioner Cindy Budek and staff members from respiratory therapy, the pulmonary habilitation program is the largest of its kind in Illinois and one of the largest in the nation.
To contact the program’s professionals, call 773.880.4780 or write to:
Children’s Memorial Hospital
Division of Pulmonary Medicine
2300 Children’s Plaza, # 73
Chicago, Illinois 60614