By NORA SORENA CASEY Special to the Daily Press
WILSHIRE Children suffering from illnesses can now stay close to home with the help of a new Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) that opened at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and Orthopaedic Hospital earlier this month.
It is the first Pediatric Intensive Care facility to open in Santa Monica. Before the opening of the new unit, children requiring intensive care were transferred to the PICU at the UCLA Medical Center in Westwood. With the new PICU in Santa Monica, children who are referred to intensive care from their local pediatric physicians or the hospital’s general pediatric care can stay in the Santa Monica hospital on 15th Street and Wilshire Boulevard.
“It really helps improve continuity of care,”said Ted Braun, the director of marketing and public relations at the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center.
The new PICU is 2,500 square feet and includes four beds and is decorated in a manner that helps children feel more at ease. It features colorful paintings of caterpillars, clouds, and a giraffe working with several elephants to put out a fire. The ceiling tiles also embrace the happy, childlike theme by featuring star, moon and cloud engravings.
The PICU has only been open for a few weeks, but already staff members are encouraged by the positive impact of their few facilities. Unit Director Lynn Coates- Leisen estimates that since opening roughly 75 percent of the unit’s beds have been filled at any given time. Typical patients require constant monitoring of vital signs.
“We just got our license, we were all ready to go and off we went,” Coates-Leisen said. “We opened at 8 (a.m.) and at 10 (a.m.) we got our first call for our first patient... we had him in by noon.”
The opening of the PICU is part of an overall expansion currently taking place at both the Santa Monica and Westwood medical centers.
“I’m just so pleased we can offer these facilities for our kids, especially the local kids,” said Coates-Leisen.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 30, 2008. Read the original PDF.