Facilities and Patient Care
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is a private, fully accredited institution that is affiliated with the University of Cincinnati. Cincinnati Children's the nation's largest inpatient pediatric center with a busy 345 bed inpatient unit and a recently opened critical care tower.
Patient Care
Cincinnati Children's admits approximately 13,900 patients a year. In addition, each year our faculty and staff perform 21,500 surgical procedures, treat 314,300 outpatient visits, and attend to 81,000 emergency department visits.
Physicians at Cincinnati Children's regularly perform kidney, heart, liver, and bone marrow transplants. Cincinnati Children's is a quaternary through primary care hospital providing treatment for infants through adolescents and is the sole provider of pediatric care in the city. In addition, approximately 10% of admissions come from outside a 50 mile radius.
Training Programs
The pediatric residency training program, pediatric subspecialty training program, and pediatric surgery training program at Cincinnati Children's are all approved by the American Boards and the Review Committee of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. The faculty consists of 298 full-time faculty in 22 academic divisions with some 146 fellows and 130 residents in training.
Nephrology Training and Treatment
The nephrology inpatient service usually consists of four to eight patients with various forms of acute and chronic renal disease and patients with kidney transplants. Nephrology consultations are often requested with respect to fluid and electrolyte disorders, renal failure, hypertension, rickets, poisonings, and immunologic and metabolic disorders.
In September 2002, outpatient nephrology activity moved to Location A, the newer patient care tower. The clinic combines the activity of the nephrology and hypertension, and urology divisions and hosts over 6,000 visits per year. Immediately adjacent to the clinic is a new eight station pediatric dialysis unit.
Approximately 50 renal biopsies are performed yearly by members of the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, and the trainee is expected to develop proficiency in this procedure. Peritoneal and hemodialysis procedures are performed in the dialysis unit, with an average patient load of 6 hemodialysis patients and 15 home peritoneal dialysis patients. Over 580 acute dialysis procedures are performed annually in the critical care units of Cincinnati Children's.
Renal transplantation in children has been performed continuously since 1965. Currently, over 266 children have received 350 renal transplants, a rate of 10-20 per year. The Divisions of Pediatric Surgery and Urology provide primary surgical care of the patients in the immediate post-transplant period. The medical pre-operative and long-term post-transplant care, as well as the immunospression and pediatric care are managed by the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension.
