St. Charles Bend Neonatal Intensive Care Unit now provides Level III care
Bend, Ore. – The St. Charles Bend Neonatal Intensive Care Unit announced this week that it is operating at Level III status, serving infants at all stages of gestational development. Dr. James S. McGuire, medical director of neonatology for Cascade Healthcare Community, said the decision to move to Level III was made by the organization with the guidance of the NICU team and reflects the caregivers’ commitment to serving the tiniest babies born in Central Oregon.
“This is a boon to the community because moms and babies will not have to travel routinely to the Willamette Valley or elsewhere for their care,” McGuire said.
Before this week, the St. Charles Bend NICU was operating at Level II status, accepting babies born at 32 weeks of gestation or older. Tim Bricker, executive vice president of CHC, said the organization has been actively recruiting additional staff including two new neonatologists and a neonatal nurse practitioner to meet the community’s needs.
“It has always been our goal to provide Level III care in the NICU,” Bricker said. “Thanks to the addition of Dr. Jennifer Hanslick to our team in July and Dr. John Evered, who will be joining us in January, we are now able to fulfill that goal.”
The medical staff works in a newly designed NICU, which opened last December. It includes 12 rooms that are enclosed on all sides offering families more privacy and premature babies a quiet, womb-like place to grow and heal. Each room can hold up to two infants so families with twins can stay together.
“We have one of the few neonatal intensive care units in the state with entirely enclosed rooms,” said James A. Diegel, FACHE, president and CEO of CHC. “We are proud to offer the families throughout our region a state-of-the-art facility with the highest level of neonatal care available.”
About St. Charles Bend
St. Charles Bend serves more than 240,000 people in a 32,000 square mile area of Central and Eastern Oregon. As the regional referral center for specialty care, we treat patients from communities across the region. Our medical staff includes 250 physicians offering 40 specialties St. Charles Bend is accredited by the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), and is licensed for 261 beds, including a 18-bed inpatient rehabilitation center. The hospital is Oregon's only Level II Trauma Center east of the Cascades, providing top quality care in a compassionate and healing environment.
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