Improving Lives. Changing Futures.
The Chronic Illness Management Program at Children’s Specialized Hospital is a comprehensive inpatient program for children with chronic, life-altering conditions who have demonstrated the need for additional support to better manage their condition.
The program provides the child and family with a structured, comprehensive service plan to address their medical, nutritional, psychological, and communication needs to enhance the child’s total well-being.
Our mission is to provide the children we serve with the best tools to effectively manage their illness, maximize their quality of life, and achieve their family-centered goals of care.
This program is designed for children and young adults, up to the age of 21, with a chronic, life-altering conditions that affect their daily lives. Examples of such conditions include, but are not limited to:
- Cystic Fibrosis
- Diabetes
- Heart Disease
- HIV/AIDS
This program is also intended for children who require strict adherence to prescribed treatment regiments, such as those recently treated with organ transplantation.
The duration of the program is typically four weeks and we employ a multidisciplinary model and behavioral approach to care that addresses the physical, emotional, and psycho-social needs of each patient with the goal of improving the child’s total overall health. During their comprehensive inpatient stay, a treatment plan is established in accordance with each child’s individual goals of care.
When clinically appropriate, our program utilizes a behavioral approach which includes shaping appropriate behavior, reinforcement of positive behavior, direct instruction to develop new skills and knowledge, fading of cues and prompts, generalizations of skills across activities and settings, and use of visual tools. Each clinical team member incorporates these interventions into treatment sessions in order to provide ample opportunities for practice, reinforcement and correction.
A typical inpatient stay includes both physician and nursing care as well as the following services:
- Psychology
- Physical therapy
- Occupational therapy
- Recreational therapy
- Child life
- Medication and disease-specific education
- Nutritional counseling
- Community outings
- School, tutoring, and individual testing