Wikipedia

Children's hospital

For other uses, see Children's hospital (disambiguation).
"Childrens hospital" redirects here. For the TV series, see Childrens Hospital.

A children's hospital (CH)[2] is a hospital that offers its services exclusively to infants, children, adolescents, and young adults from birth up to until age 18, and through age 21 and older in the United States.[3] In certain special cases, they may also treat adults.[4][5] The number of children's hospitals proliferated in the 20th century, as pediatric medical and surgical specialties separated from internal medicine and adult surgical specialties.

Young boy at the St. Louis Children's Hospital
Children's Castle (Lastenlinna), a former children's hospital, that preceded the current New Children's Hospital [fr],[1] in Helsinki, Finland
The front facade of Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital in New Brunswick, NJ.

Integration

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Children's hospitals are characterized by greater attention to the psychosocial support of children and their families. Some children and young people have to spend relatively long periods in hospital, so having access to play and teaching staff can also be an important part of their care.[6] With local partnerships, this can include trips to local botanical gardens, zoos, and public libraries for instance.[7] Designs for the new Cambridge Children's Hospital, approved in 2022, plan to fully integrate mental and physical health provision for children and young people, bringing together services of three partners: Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust, and the University of Cambridge with physical and mental health services located alongside research activity.[8]

Staffing

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In addition to psychosocial support, children's hospitals have the added benefit of being staffed by professionals who are trained in treating children. A medical doctor that undertakes vocational training in paediatrics must also be accepted for membership by a professional college before they can practice paediatrics. These include the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP), Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), and the American Board of Pediatrics. In New Zealand, the RACP offers vocational training in paediatrics. Once RACP training is completed the doctor is awarded the Fellowship of the RACP (FRACP) in paediatrics.[9] While many normal hospitals can treat children adequately, pediatric specialists may be a better choice when it comes to treating rare afflictions that may prove fatal or severely detrimental to young children, in some cases before birth. Also, many children's hospitals will continue to see children with rare illnesses into adulthood, allowing for a continuity of care.

History

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Early Voluntary Care

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Prior to 19th century hospital reforms, the well-being of the child was thought to be in the hands of the mother; therefore, there was little discussion of children's medicine, and as a result next to no widespread formal institutions which focused on healing children.

Dispensaries and foundling hospitals were the earliest forms of what would later become children's hospitals. Florence's Hospital of the Innocent (Ospedale degli Innocenti) was originally a charity based orphanage which opened in 1445; its aim was to nurse sick and abandoned infants back to health. Foundling hospitals such as the Foundling Hospital founded by Thomas Coram in 1741 were created to receive abandoned infants, nurse them back to health, teach them a trade or skill, and integrate them back into society.

Dispensaries funded by donations also provided medicine and medical attention to those who could not afford private care. The Scottish paediatrician George Armstrong, who established the first British dispensary, in 1769, was against in-patient care for sick children. Armstrong stated:

But a very little reflection will clearly convince any thinking person that such a Scheme as this can never be executed. If you take away a sick child for its Parents or Nurse, you break its heart immediately.[10]

Objections to admission were sometimes based on pragmatic reasons, e.g. reducing the threat of cross infection from children with diseases such as typhus, diphtheria and measles, that were a major cause of infant mortality. The voluntary nature of hospitals meant that such outbreaks were very costly.

19th-century models

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In the mid-19th century western world, middle-class women and physicians became increasingly concerned about the well-being of children in poor living conditions. Although infant mortality had begun to decline, it still remained a prominent issue. Social reformers blamed the emergence of the industrial society and poor parents for not properly caring for their children. By the 1870s, the prevalent view among doctors and nurses was that children were better off by being removed to hospital, away from the often poor, unsanitary conditions at home.[11] In response, reformers and physicians founded children's hospitals.[12]

By the early 19th century, children's hospitals opened in major cities throughout Europe.[13] The first formally recognized paediatrics hospital was the Hôpital des Enfants Malades in Paris, which opened in 1802. Great Ormond Street Hospital was established in London in 1852, and was the first British children's hospital.[14] The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania was created in 1855.[15] The Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh was the first children's hospital in Scotland and opened in 1860.[16] The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, Ontario was the first Canadian children's hospital and opened in 1875.[17] By the end of the 19th century, and the during the first two decades of the 20th century, the number of children's hospitals tripled in both Canada and the United States.[12] From the 1850s to around 1910, most cities in the UK had built children's hospitals, which included a large number of prestigious hospitals such as the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Glasgow, Great Ormond Street Hospital and the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital.[11]

Early western children's hospitals were independent institutions funded by voluntary donations, and from research.[13] Often, children could only be admitted if they were sponsored by a letter of recommendation from a hospital affiliate. The "undeserving poor" were sent to workhouse infirmaries, whilst middle class children were generally cared for, and indeed operated on, at home.[18] Hospitals set their own rules and had their own way of working, including regulating admissions. They often excluded children under the age of two on humanitarian and pragmatic grounds and were often hesitant to admit children who required long-term care in fear that those lives would be lost or that long-term care would block beds for those in immediate need.[13][11]

Early children's hospitals focused more on short-term care and treating mild illnesses rather than long-term intensive care. Treating serious diseases and illnesses in early children's hospitals could result in the disease spreading throughout the hospital which would drain already limited resources. A serious disease outbreak in a children's hospital would result in more deaths than lives saved and would therefore reinforce the previous notion that people often died while in the hospital.[12]

Professionalization of Children's Hospitals

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In the 19th century, there was a societal shift in how children were viewed. This shift took away some of the parents' control and placed it in the hands of medical professionals.[19] By the early 20th century, a child's health became increasingly tied to physicians and hospitals.[20] This was a result of licensing acts, the formation of medical associations, and new fields of medicine being introduced across countries.[20] New areas of medicine offered physicians the chance to build their careers by "overseeing the medical needs of private patients, caring for and trying new therapies on the sick poor, and teaching medical students."[20] In order to raise their status further, physicians began organizing children's hospitals; by doing so, it also brought attention and importance to their speciality in the modern health care system.[12]

Voluntary or religiously associated female care was often replaced by care provided by professionally trained nurses.[21]

Critiques of children's hospital care

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Historically, many children's hospitals limited the ability of children and parents to interact, such as by limiting visiting hours. This approach was criticised for decades before shifts in practice occurred.

Surgeon James Henderson Nicholl of the Glasgow Hospital for Sick Children, who pioneered day surgery procedures such as Hernia and cleft palate, stated in 1909 that: '[I]n children under 2 years of age, there a few operations indeed that cannot be as advantageously carried out in the out patient departments as in the wards.' Nicholl believed that hospitalisation wasn't necessary, and children were better cared from in their own home by their parents and by nurses making daily visits. Nicholl argued that "separation from mother is often harmful".[22]

During the interwar period, leading up to World War II, psychiatrists expressed concerns about children being away from parents, such as during hospitalisation. Harry Edelston, a Psychiatrist in Leeds, detailed that children were emotionally damaged by their stay in hospital.[23]

In the post-war era, critiques became more widespread and studies were conducted to examine potential harms. René Spitz, an Austrian-American psychoanalyst, published an article in 1945 in which he noted deleterious effects of hospitalisation, based on his research with institutionalised children.[24]

L.A. Perry wrote a 1947 Lancet article that protested the restrictions of parental visits on hospitalized children. However, Edelston wrote in 1948, that many of this colleagues still refused to believe in hospitalisation trauma[23] Bowlby studied 44 juvenile thieves and found that a significantly high number had experienced early and traumatic separation from their mother. In 1949, he used the data to write a report for the World Health Organization's on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe.[23]

With the introduction of penicillin into the majority of the medical community by the 1940s, the major objection by doctors and nurses, that visits by parents into hospital wards introduced cross infections had been removed. A major review in 1949, over an 11-month period, showed that children admitted to 26 wards in 14 hospitals showed no correlation between visits and cross infection from parents to children. By that time, the working practices of doctors and nurses, still posed the main objection to visiting.[25] A.D. Hunt reported that:

The hospitalised child was considered essentially a biological unit, far better off without his parents who, on weekly or bi-weekly visiting hours, were fundamentally toxic in their effect, causing noise, generally disorderly conduct, and rejection by hospital personnel.[26]

British Psychiatrist John Bowlby, who had previously criticised World War II evacuation schemes separating parents and children,[27] and his research assistant at the Tavistock Clinic, James Robertson, a Scottish social worker and psychoanalyst, researched the separation of young children from their parents during hospital stays and criticised the negative impacts on the children of policies of limited visiting.[28][29][30]

By the 1950s, British politicians were concerned enough about the impact of children's hospital policy to create a committee to research the welfare of sick children in hospital. This committee produced the Platt Report of 1959, recommending that children should have more access to their parents while ill. The Report had effects on hospital care of children in the UK and New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States.[31]

Utilization in the United States

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Using hospital discharge data from 2003 to 2011, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) studied trends in aggregate hospital costs, average hospital costs, and hospital utilization. The Agency found that for children aged 0–17, aggregate costs rose rapidly for the surgical hospitalizations and decreased for injury hospitalizations. Further, average hospital costs, or cost per discharge, increased at least 2% for all hospitalizations and were expected to grow by at least 4% through 2013. The exception to this was mental health hospitalizations, which saw a lower percentage increase of 1.2%, and was projected to increase only 0.9% through 2013. Despite the rising aggregate costs and costs per discharge, hospitalizations (except for mental health hospitalizations) for children aged 0–17 decreased over the same time, and were projected to continue decreasing.[32]

In 2006–2011, the rate of emergency department (ED) use in the United States was highest for patients aged under one year, but lowest for patients aged 1–17 years. The rate of ED use for patients aged under one year declined over the same time period; this was the only age group to see a decline.[33]

Between 2008 and 2012, growth in mean hospital costs per stay in the United States was highest for patients aged 17 and younger.[34] In 2012 there were nearly 5.9 million hospital stays for children in the United States, of which 3.9 million were neonatal stays and 104,700 were maternal stays for pregnant teens.[35]

Ranking

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Every year U.S. News & World Report ranks the top children's hospitals and pediatric specialties in the United States. For the year 2010–2011, eight hospitals ranked in all 10 pediatric specialties. The ranking system used by U.S. News & World Report depends on a variety of factors. In past years (2007 was the 18th year of Pediatric Ranking), ranking of hospitals has been done solely on the basis of reputation, gauged by random sampling and surveying of pediatricians and pediatric specialists throughout the country. The ranking system used is currently under review.[36]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "YLE: New Children's Hospital celebrates official opening". 7 September 2018. Archived from the original on 2020-07-02. Retrieved 2020-06-30.
  2. ^ Steiner MJ, Hall M, Sutton AG, Stephens JR, Leyenaar JK, Chase L, McDaniel CE (October 30, 2023). "Pediatric Hospitalization Trends at Children's and General Hospitals, 2000-2019". JAMA. 330 (19): 1906–1908. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.19268. PMC 10616761. PMID 37902774.
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  4. ^ "Adult Cystic Fibrosis Program". Nationwide Children's Hospital.
  5. ^ "Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program". Texas Children's Hospital. Archived from the original on 2020-10-06. Retrieved 2020-05-21.
  6. ^ "Where special treatment is just what the doctor ordered | News". 2016-08-21. Archived from the original on 2016-08-21. Retrieved 2018-10-19.
  7. ^ "The 50 Most Amazing Children's Hospitals in the World – Healthcare Administration Degree Programs". www.healthcare-administration-degree.net. Archived from the original on 19 December 2017. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  8. ^ "Special report: Designing a new model for children's hospitals". Building Better Healthcare. 21 July 2022. Archived from the original on 28 September 2022. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  9. ^ "Paediatrics". www.mcnz.org.nz. Archived from the original on 13 April 2018. Retrieved 12 April 2018.
  10. ^ H. Beukers; John Michael Henderson Moll (1989). Clinical Teaching, Past and Present. Rodopi. p. 27. ISBN 978-90-5183-082-8. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
  11. ^ a b c Davies, Ruth (5 January 2010). "Marking the 50th anniversary of the Platt Report: from exclusion, to toleration and parental participation in the care of the hospitalized child". Journal of Child Health Care. 14 (1): 6–23. doi:10.1177/1367493509347058. PMID 20051502. S2CID 206719396.
  12. ^ a b c d Sloane, David (October 2005). "Not Designed Merely to Heal: Women Reformers and the Emergence of Children's Hospitals". The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. 4 (4): 331–354. doi:10.1017/S1537781400002747. S2CID 162917903.
  13. ^ a b c Abreu, Laurinda (2013). Hospital Life : Theory and Practice From the Medieval to the Modern. Pieterien: Peter Lang AG. pp. 209, 210, 213, 214, 220, 222.
  14. ^ "Great Osmond Street Hospital Charity". Archived from the original on 2016-03-23. Retrieved 2016-04-08.
  15. ^ "About the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia". The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Archived from the original on 2010-06-29. Retrieved 2016-04-08.
  16. ^ Young, D.G. (August 1999). "The Mason Brown Lecture: Scots and paediatric surgery". Journal of the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh. 44: 211–15. PMID 10453141. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14.
  17. ^ "History and milestones". Archived from the original on 2009-03-01. Retrieved 2016-04-08.
  18. ^ Professor Margaret Stacey (2 September 2003). The Sociology of Health and Healing: A Textbook. Routledge. pp. 63–66. ISBN 978-1-134-89793-3. Retrieved 25 September 2018.
  19. ^ Duffin, Jacalyn (2010). History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 341. ISBN 978-0-8020-9556-5.
  20. ^ a b c Connolly, Cindy. "Growth and Development Of a Specialty: The Professionalization of Child Health Care." Pediatric Nursing 31, no. 3 (May 2005): 211-215. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost.
  21. ^ Fass, Paula. Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood: In History and Society. Macmillan Reference USA. p. 176.
  22. ^ Nicoll, James H. (18 September 1909). "The Surgery of Infancy" (PDF). British Medical Journal: 753–754. Retrieved 21 May 2018.
  23. ^ a b c Robert Karen (1994). Becoming Attached: First Relationships and how They Shape Our Capacity to Love. Oxford University Press. p. 68. ISBN 978-0-19-511501-7. Retrieved 1 May 2018.
  24. ^ Spitz, Rene A. (13 February 2017). "Hospitalism An Inquiry into the Genesis of Psychiatric Conditions in Early Childhood". The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child. 1 (1): 53–74. doi:10.1080/00797308.1945.11823126. PMID 21004303.
  25. ^ Watkins, A. G.; Lewis-Faning, E. (17 September 1949). "Incidence of Cross-infection in Children's Wards". BMJ. 2 (4628): 616–619. doi:10.1136/bmj.2.4628.616. PMC 2051037. PMID 18140555.
  26. ^ Hunt, A.D. (November 1974). "On the Hospitalisation of Children: An Historical Approach". Pediatrics. 54 (5): 542–546. doi:10.1542/peds.54.5.542. PMID 4616215. S2CID 39091723.
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  28. ^ Jools, Page (October 2015). "Chapter 9 - The Legacy of John Bowlby's Attachment Theory" (PDF). The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophies and Theories of Early Childhood Education and Care. University of Brighton Repository: Routledge. pp. 80–90. ISBN 9781138022812. Retrieved 23 May 2018.
  29. ^ Alsop-Shields, Linda; Mohay, Heather (20 December 2001). "John Bowlby and James Robertson: theorists, scientists and crusaders for improvements in the care of children in hospital". Journal of Advanced Nursing. 35 (1): 50–58. doi:10.1046/j.1365-2648.2001.01821.x. PMID 11442682.
  30. ^ Robertson, James (10 December 1958). "Going to Hospital with Mother". Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 52 (381): 381–3, discussion 383–4. doi:10.1177/003591575905200518. PMC 1869195. PMID 13658166.
  31. ^ Dr Jim Richardson; Edward Alan Glasper (19 May 2010). A Textbook of Children's and Young People's Nursing E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 33. ISBN 978-0-7020-4440-3. Retrieved 16 June 2018.
  32. ^ Weiss AJ, Barrett ML, Andrews RM (July 2014). "Trends and Projections of U.S. Hospital Costs by Payer, 2003-2013". HCUP Statistical Brief (176). Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Archived from the original on 2022-03-11. Retrieved 2014-08-15.
  33. ^ Skiner HG, Blanchard J, Elixhauser A (September 2014). "Trends in Emergency Department Visits, 2006-2011". HCUP Statistical Brief (179). Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Archived from the original on 2014-12-24. Retrieved 2014-10-20.
  34. ^ Moore B, Levit K, Elixhauser A (October 2014). "Costs for Hospital Stays in the United States, 2012". HCUP Statistical Brief (181). Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Archived from the original on 2014-11-29. Retrieved 2014-11-26.
  35. ^ Witt WP, Wiess AJ, Elixhauser A (December 2014). "Overview of Hospital Stays for Children in the United States, 2012". HCUP Statistical Brief (186). Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. PMID 25695124. Archived from the original on 2018-09-24. Retrieved 2015-04-06.
  36. ^ "Birth of a New Methodology" Archived October 10, 2007, at the Wayback Machine Avery Comarow. U.S. News & World Report, August 26, 2007. Accessed October 10, 2007.
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