The Front Line

Newborn Center ranked third in the nation

by Michael Speer, MD

Child magazine ranked the neonatology program at Texas Children’s Hospital 3rd in the United States. The survey results were published in the magazine’s February issue.

Based on qualifying criteria, only 54 hospitals nationwide were asked to participate in a thorough survey of their facilities. The survey queried such factors as survival rates and average lengths of stay for neonates at various gestational ages and children with various heart disorders, as well as the amount of government funding a hospital receives.

The Texas Children’s Newborn Center is the largest and busiest in the nation. The center was one of the first in the world to develop facilities and specific care plans to minimize light and noise in the NICU to improve the care environment for its patients. It is a regional ECMO center and a center for acute and chronic respiratory disease management. The Newborn Center includes a new state-of-the-art neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) with 120 beds. This unit serves as the NICU for 2,900 patients each year including inborn infants and transfers from other hospitals across the state of Texas.

The Texas Children’s cardiology program also ranked 3rd in the survey, and the hospital itself climbed to 4th among the nation’s pediatric hospitals in the nation and 1st in the South and Southwest.

The U.S. News & World Report annual survey of top medical schools ranked the Pediatrics Department of Baylor College of Medicine 9th and the college overall 12th. The U.S. News survey included 125 medical schools and 19 schools of osteopathic medicine and results were published in April 2003.

“To be included among the nation’s top medical schools is an honor and an ongoing goal of the College because it is an indication that [Baylor College of Medicine] is an excellent place to learn, care for patients, and discover new treatments,” said Dr. Peter G.. Traber, Baylor president and CEO.