Clinical Activities
Our clinical goal is to provide outstanding care to all ill newborns in the Finger Lakes Region. The NICU at Golisano Children's Hospital at Strong is a level IV facility that can treat all neonatal medical and surgical illnesses. Our 52 bed NICU has extensive technical capabilities, including ECMO, inhaled NO, and HFOV.
In calendar year 2006, our 10 board-certified neonatologists treated 1153 newborns in the NICU. These patients had the full range of medical, surgical and cardiac disorders. The average daily census in the NICU in 2006 was 53 patients and we had a total of 19,491 patient days. Of the 3267 patients born at Strong Memorial Hospital, 920 were admitted to the NICU. An additional 233 patients, who were born at either community hospitals or at other regional hospitals, were transferred to our NICU for advanced care. Our neonatal transport service transferred patients from 27 referring hospitals. Approximately 1 in 12 newborns in our region was treated in the NICU at GCH@S. In 2006, 173 patients were transferred back to their community hospital for convalescent care and to be closer to their families.
Our very busy NICU is the site for training pediatric and internal medicine-pediatric house officers, postdoctoral fellows, medical students and neonatal nurse practitioners. The Division of Neonatology also supervises the newborn nursery at Strong Memorial Hospital. Two board-certified pediatricians establish policy and procedures and care for normal newborns.
At Rochester General Hospital, the Division of Neonatology cared for 546 patients in the Level II SCN in 2006, amounting to 2403 patient days. The average daily census was 6.6. As a community hospital, the RGH SCN is an important training site for pediatric and family medicine residents and medical students. Members of the Division of Neonatology are medical directors for the nurseries at RGH, Highland Hospital and Unity Hospital and are responsible for establishing consistent policy and procedures for local hospitals.
To provide outstanding medical care, it is essential to follow the neurodevelopmental outcome of our NICU “graduates”. The Neonatal Continuing Care Program follows all patients who are discharged from the NICU, either in Neonatal Continuing Care Clinic (NCCC) or in the Neonatal Tracking Program. In the NCCC, patients are evaluated by a pediatric neurologist, developmental psychologist, social worker, neonatal nurse practitioner and neonatologist. In 2006, the NCCC conducted 223 evaluations. The NCCC also evaluates patients who were not in the NICU, but are referred from the Monroe County Early Intervention Program. The Neonatal Tracking Program follows all NICU graduates to age 10 years by periodic questionnaires sent to the patient’s family and pediatrician. The tracking forms are reviewed by the NCCC team to identify patients who may need formal evaluation and to obtain long-term follow-up data. In 2006, 1860 forms were returned by parents and 3985 forms were returned by pediatricians. To date, over 23,000 patients have been followed by the tracking program.
Integral to the Division of Neonatology's clinical activities are outreach visits to the 17 referring hospitals in the Finger Lakes Region. The goals of these visits are to review maternal and neonatal outcomes at the referring hospitals, provide feedback on patients transferred to the GCH@S NICU; review clinical policies and procedures; and provide outreach education. In addition, the outreach team compares outcome statistics from the referring hospital to region-wide data. Each hospital is visited 1-2 times per year by a neonatologist, high risk perinatologist, neonatal nurse practitioner and obstetrical nurse practitioner.
