What Makes Us Unique
Apart from seeing substantially more pediatric patients than any other facility in the West Texas-Panhandle Plains-Eastern New Mexico region, Covenant Children's is uniquely qualified to care for children in the West Texas and Eastern New Mexico Region.
We have so much to offer when it comes to pediatrics - think Covenant Children's when your child needs care!
Any hospital can claim it has a children's hospital, but hospitals specifically licensed as children's hospitals have to have governance, operational leadership, and ancillary services that are unique to the children's hospital, ensuring that resources aren't prioritized to adult services. At Covenant Children's, our staff and leadership are solely focused on pediatric care. What this really means is that we live and breath children's services all day, every day. We don't just dabble in it.
In addition to being licensed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as a children's hospital, our freestanding status means our entire hospital is dedicated to the care of kids. Many hospitals merely offer a smattering of pediatric services within a larger adult-focused hospital. Not here - all of our staff are dedicated to, and have special training in, care of kids. And that expertise comes from seeing substantially more pediatric patients than any other facility in the West Texas-Panhandle Plains-Eastern New Mexico region.
In our quest to provide the highest level of pediatric care possible to our region, Covenant Children's became the State's first verified level II pediatric trauma center in 2011. Experience matters and we currently see over 600 pediatric trauma encounters per year - significantly more than any other Pediatric Trauma Center in West Texas/Eastern New Mexico. We have a number of specialists - such as pediatric trauma surgeons, pediatric orthopedic surgeons, pediatric neurosurgery physicians, etc. - on-call to respond immediately to any trauma needs.
MYTH: A Level 1 adult trauma center, coupled with a Level II Pediatric Trauma Center, offers a higher level of care than a standalone Pediatric Trauma Center like Covenant Children's. TRUTH: The American College of Surgeons (ACS) separately designates adult and pediatric trauma centers and a Level 1 Adult Trauma Center, coupled with a level II Pediatric Trauma Center, offers no higher level of pediatric care.
MYTH: All pediatric trauma centers offer the same level of care TRUTH: Experience and volume matters. With 10+ years more experience than any other Pediatric trauma center, staff 100% dedicated to pediatrics, and significantly more volume than other facilities, we are experts in pediatric care. Learn more about our pediatric trauma center and why you should choose Covenant for all your child's health needs.
As a freestanding children's hospital, our ED is dedicated to pediatric patients. We see over 25,000 pediatric emergency visits a year - far more than any other hospital in our region... making our providers very comfortable and knowledgeable in dealing with pediatric emergencies.
More importantly, we are the only facility in our region to staff our emergency department with a robust complement of Pediatric Emergency Medicine (Pediatric EM) physicians. These specialists are trained to specifically care for kids in the ED. Unlike other regional facilities, that staff with adult Emergency Medicine physicians, residents (doctors starting out careers who are seeking additional training), and perhaps a pediatrician or pediatric EM physician here or there... our entire ED staff is dedicated to pediatric care. When your child is receiving care, they deserve providers with the highest level of expertise: pediatric emergency medicine physicians.
Covenant Children’s transport teams (pediatric and neonatal) are elevating transport care for the Panhandle Plains and Eastern NM region. Our Teams are specialized to meet the needs of critically ill newborns and kids who require transport to Covenant Children's via helicopter or ambulance. Our dedicated transport teams are staffed 24/7 by registered nurses and respiratory therapists with extensive and special training and experience in neonatal and pediatric critical care.
Level IV Maternal Centers are able to care for all the needs of mom and baby. Level IV centers are required to have Maternal Fetal Medicine specialists who coordinate care for high-risk mothers, on-site intensive care capabilities for emergent maternal needs, and 24/7 on-site OB/GYNs, among many other requirements. What this means is you can rest assured we're well equipped to care for mom and baby, no matter the circumstances.
Our board-certified OB hospitalists are in-house 24/7 to care for our obstetric patients. This ensures patients whose private OB physician cannot immediately respond, are seen by a board-certified obstetrician. At other facilities, if you show up in the ED or L&D unit, you may just be seen by a RN and never ever even be seen by an obstetrician. Quality and safety are always at the top of our mind and our OB hospitalist program evolved as we realized we needed OB hospitalists to provide the best care possible to the women in our community.
Our Obstetric Emergency Department opened in 2017. It is a first of it's kind for our region and we now see ~4,500 encounters/year. Made possible by our Obstetric Hospitalist Program, this program ensures our maternal patients receive the highest level of care possible by ensuring they are immediately seen by a board-certified obstetrician and aren't just triaged by an OB nurse - where many facilities may discharge a woman without her ever seeing an OB physician. This ensures we provide the highest level of care to mom and baby when a mother-to-be's OB can't immediately respond because they're delivering another patient's baby or are otherwise unavailable.
In 2018, we were designated as a level IV NICU by the State of Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS). This is the highest level of designation possible and puts Covenant Children's in a group of 20 hospitals in Texas with a level IV designation. This designation requires a number of things such as board-certified pediatric anesthesiologists performing all neonatal cases, access to a number of pediatric surgical specialties, etc. Essentially we're qualified to care for the most critical of newborns and we only transfer patients out for highly specialized care such as pediatric cardiovascular surgery. We also offer the NicVIEW web cam system, that allows families to view their baby remotely and to share that access with whoever they choose, for all NICU patients. This can mean grandparents, a service member who can't be present for the birth of their own child, etc. can still be a part of the family and their baby's NICU journey - no matter where they are. This is just one of the ways we live out our family-centered care philosophy.
At Covenant Children's, we are committed to train the next generation of pediatric experts. As the primary teaching site for pediatrics for Texas Tech Health Sciences Center we educate 24 general pediatrics residents at any given time (8 new residents accepted per year).
We are one of eight licensed children's hospitals in Texas that are members of the Children's Hospital Association of Texas (CHAT). CHAT undertakes quality initiatives and advocates on behalf of children's health for the entire state.
Learn more about CHAT and the vital role it's member hospitals play in caring for kids.
Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS) is a network of 135+ children’s hospitals who share the vision that no child will ever experience preventable serious harm while in hospital. As one of 12 Texas-based SPS participating hospitals, we undertake work around evidence-based bundles to reduce safety events (CLABSI, CAUTI, Falls, Adverse Drug Events, Pressure Injuries, Readmissions, SSIs, Unplanned Extubations, VAP, Venous Thromboembolism). As of November 2018, the network has reduced three pediatric HACS (i.e., Falls, ADE and CAUTI) by 40% or more since 2012, in addition to reducing harm across all other safety bundles. Covenant Children's has been recognized as a SPS Hospital of the Month a number of times for it's work around reducing harm and providing the highest quality of care to our patients.
The Pediatric National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) is the premiere pediatric surgical quality improvement program in the nation. We are the only hospital in Lubbock, and our region, that participates. In fact we're 1 of only 9 hospitals in Texas that participate. We provide surgical data, including 30-day outcomes data, on specific high-risk, high-volume procedures drawn from six sub-specialty areas. NSQIP then benchmarks this data and facilitates collaboration among participating member hospitals in order to drive quality improvement. Your child's surgical care is important and our participation in Pediatric NSQIP shows you we take quality seriously. We use NSQIP data to ensure we're providing care on par with all the other major children's hospitals across the US. You can rest assured that our surgical care is top notch.
When there are resources in local communities we try to keep those kids in their originating community. It's what's best for kids - and families. But when specialty needs exceed the community's availability, our specialists are available.
In keeping these patients as close to home as possible, we partner with referring providers, allowing them to view the care provided to their patients by Covenant providers. We want them to be fully aware of the care your child received at Covenant.
We know that family knows child best. We take a number of steps to ensure we're providing family-centered care such as:
- Involving Family: we know most parents want to participate in their child's care and where we can, such as through comfort positions when children are going through procedures or lab draws, parents can play an important role in providing care. We also have a Family Advisory Council that participates in hospital projects - everything from space and interior design to identifying and addressing issues with certain areas.
- Providing Developmentally appropriate resources: our child life specialists know what's developmentally appropriate for children and often participate in the care team.
- Being Compassionate and Supportive: we know this is a stressful time for parents and guardians. Our staff recognizes this and is here to support parents-caregivers in their time of need. From spiritual care to counseling services to connecting with outside resources such as the Ronald McDonald House to assist with housing, we recognize your whole family is impacted when your child is ill.
- Multidisciplinary Care Planning and Rounding: by promoting communication between caregivers, and family, as well as having providers round daily, with family involvement in rounding, we're able to better care for your child. You deserve to know what's happening and to be involved in decision-making around your child's care.