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"HMHP, Akron Children's Hospital Team Up"
"YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Mahoning Valley children with a variety of special health-care needs won't need to travel out of town for treatment much longer. Humility of Mary Health Partners is teaming up with Akron Children's Hospital to provide enhanced pediatric health services in Youngstown beginning in July. Although Youngstown has a children's hospital, the services HMHP and Akron Children's Hospital will provide have never been available in the Mahoning Valley, said Robert Shroder, HMHP president and chief executive officer, at a press event Tuesday. These services include fetal echocardiography, a congenital heart clinic for adults, surgical support to the existing neonatal intensive care unit, and electrophysiology services for children and teens. The fetal echocardiography services will identify or confirm abnormalities in the hearts of unborn babies so that physicians can develop birth plans that will best benefit the children, explained Phil Smith, M.D., director of the Heart Center at Akron Children's Hospital. The congenital heart clinic for adults will meet the needs of adults who've been treated for congenital heart problems since they were children which, Smith said, is "an underserved population" in the Youngstown area. The surgical support will allow babies born with certain congenital heart problems to be treated here rather than be sent to another hospital. As is, children born with certain defects must be transported -- often in unstable condition -- because hospitals in the Mahoning Valley are not equipped to provide required treatment, Smith explained.The electrophysiology services will serve children from about 8 to 14 who have irregular heart rhythms. Pediatric orthopedic surgery will be added in the fall, and in 2007, Akron Children's Hospital will provide general surgery and urology procedures at St. Elizabeth's, Shroder said."Our affiliation with Akron Children's Hospital will further strengthen St. Elizabeth's role as the area's provider of tertiary services," he continued. "We're extremely excited with our new relationship with Akron Children's Hospital." Akron Children's Hospital has been serving children from the Mahoning Valley through its relationship with caregivers throughout the region for decades, officials noted. This new affiliation, said William Considine, president and CEO of Akron Children's Hospital, will help the hospital better meet the needs of children by allowing them to receive care in their hometown. Three years ago, Akron Children's Hospital opened an office in Boardman to provide some specialized services to children. One physician and three support staff members provide heart services on a full-time basis there, Smith said, and other specialists visit the facility one day a week to provide pediatric urology, orthopedics and pulmonary care services. As services available in Mahoning County expand, he said, additional personnel will be added as needed. Akron Children's Hospital is the largest pediatric care provider in Northeast Ohio serving more than 300,000 patients a year. It operates a 253-bed pediatric hospital including a pediatric trauma center and a regional burn trauma center that treats both children and adults. HMHP operates St. Elizabeth and St. Joseph health centers, St. Elizabeth Boardman Campus, Humility of Mary Home Health Services, The Assumption Village, Humility House and Hospice of the Valley. A new, four-story acute care hospital is slated to open at the Boardman campus in 2007. Representatives from both organizations signed the affiliation agreement Feb. 21."