Pediatric Trauma and Emergency Department

A visit to the emergency department can cause a great deal of anxiety for children and loved ones. At Advocate Lutheran General Hospital, infants and children requiring emergency care receive special attention in a pediatric emergency area set apart from our adult emergency treatment area. With a separate children’s waiting area, toys, child-focused activities and private pediatric emergency suites, we strive to put pediatric patients and their families at ease.

Our pediatric emergency physicians are board-certified and fellowship-trained in pediatric emergency medicine. Nurses are trained in pediatric critical care, and many are certified in Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS). In addition, our nurses are dedicated to keeping abreast of the latest advances in critical care through continuing education programs.

Pediatric Intensive Care Unit

At Advocate Lutheran General Children’s Hospital, our Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) provides expert care to more than 800 critically ill and injured children each year. The unit’s full-time pediatric critical care intensivist physicians and specially trained nurses provide high quality care and the most advanced treatments available, in conjunction with the pediatric subspecialists on staff at the hospital.

The PICU is staffed, equipped and designed to provide the highest level of treatment possible. When critically ill patients at area hospitals require a higher level of care, the PICU transport team facilitates their safe transfer to Advocate Lutheran General Children’s Hospital. More than 250 children from many regional institutions are transferred each year to our PICU, where they receive the care only a premier children’s hospital can provide. Critical care physicians and nurses remain in continual contact with the referring physician, so they may closely follow the child’s condition.

The PICU’s extensive capabilities include:

• Sophisticated hemodynamic monitoring
• Conventional, high-frequency jet and high-frequency oscillatory ventilation
• Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO)
• Continuous Renal Replacement Therapy (CRRT)