St. John West Shore Launches Only Pediatric Hospitalist Program On Cleveland’s Westside

Unique Program Provides Round-The-Clock, High-Quality Care to Young Patients Through Specially-Trained Medical Professionals

May 2007—St. John West Shore Hospital, in partnership with Community Hospitalists, recently launched the only Pediatric Hospitalist Program that serves the western suburbs of Cleveland. The program consists of a 12 private bed unit that provides children with high-quality care throughout the day or night, seven days a week thanks to the qualified and dedicated pediatric hospitalists and pediatric nurses on staff.

St. John West Shore Hospital’s pediatric hospitalists provide individualized, family-oriented, and medically-advanced care for young patients. Among other benefits, the unique program allows patients’ primary care pediatricians to focus on their clinic patients with the confidence that their hospitalized patients are receiving quality inpatient care from the time they are admitted through discharge.

According to Dr. Akinyi Adija, St. John West Shore Pediatric Hospitalist, “In traditional practices patients may only see their pediatrician once a day when they are in the hospital for morning rounds. However, we’re readily available to patients because we’re based in the hospital and can provide timely treatment.”

“The benefits of utilizing a pediatric hospitalist include quick response to changes in a child's condition as they might occur throughout the course of a day, enhanced communications with patient and families as a result of being in the hospital, and coordinated inpatient management of care which could involve several specialists,” said Dr. Timothy McKnight, Site Director of St. John West Shore’s Pediatric Hospitalist Program. “In many instances, the use of a pediatric hospitalist can also result in fewer medical complications and a shorter length of stay for the child.”

“Currently, we provide a number of hospitalist programs throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania, including one psychiatric hospitalist program, but this is our first pediatric program,” said Christine States, Vice-President of Community Hospitalists. “As such, our goal is to make St. John West Shore the model for other, similar programs.”

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