Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, March 28, 1991                   TAG: 9103280380
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHARLES HITE/ MEDICAL WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOSPITALS LINK SERVICES FOR CHILDREN

Beginning April 9, Roanoke Memorial will send nearly all of its pediatric patients to the new Children's Medical Center of the Virginias at Community Hospital.

The only exception will be children who are major trauma victims. These children - typically less than 30 a year - will be treated at Roanoke Memorial's trauma center and then transferred to the children's center.

"One message we want to get out is: `Parents, take your children to Community Hospital's emergency room, rather than [to] Roanoke Memorial,' " Dr. Preston Boggess, medical director of the new children's center, said at a news conference Wednesday.

"We think we have come up with a very solid program," said Dr. Douglas Pierce, a pediatrician who chaired the committee to plan the merger of children's services. "We think the children of the Roanoke Valley will be much better served than in the past."

The center anticipates drawing a significant number of patients from Southwest Virginia and southern West Virginia, said William Reid, Community's president.

The children's center will treat infants to 16-year-olds and will "combine the best aspects of both hospitals," Boggess said.

Among the features of the new center are:

A specialized emergency department with a clinical nurse specialist in pediatric emergency medicine and separate waiting areas for children and their families.

A 35-bed pediatric unit on the eighth floor of Community, including two glass exterior observation rooms, a "cohort" room for children with similar illnesses, and a separate adolescent area and teen lounge.

A six-bed pediatric intensive-care unit with more space, an on-site call room for physicians, new equipment and a specialized staff.

A full-time pediatric outpatient clinic in an office building near the hospital.

A medical staff of four full-time physicians who will help supervise education programs for medical students, nurses and residents. One physician will specialize in pediatric cardiology. A fifth doctor, specializing in lung disease, will be added this summer.

Renovation and planning costs for the center totaled about $400,000, Reid said. The move will mean the addition of 100 staff, including 86 who will transfer from Roanoke Memorial.

The new center will help the hospitals meet their goal of saving $42 million over five years as a result of their merger, said Thomas Robertson, president of Carilion Health System, the parent company of Community and Roanoke Memorial.

The next major merger of services will occur in about a year, when obstetrical services are to be consolidated at Community, Reid said. The new unit will handle more than 3,000 deliveries a year.

After the combined obstetrical unit opens, about 130 of Community's 290 beds will be for children's or women's services.