Bon Secours St. Mary’s Hospital now has eight of the eleven specialty-trained pediatric emergency medicine physicians in the Richmond Area making the Pediatric Emergency Department the first in the region to be staffed around the clock by these physicians.
“Many patients are not aware of the importance of board certification, particularly within a specialty or subspecialty, when they are choosing a physician or hospital for their health care,” said Leigh T. Sewell, vice president of service line strategy and performance management, Bon Secours Virginia. “Physicians and nurses who are board certified have passed written, and in some cases oral exams, and they are required to keep pace with the latest advances in their specialties while also demonstrating to the medical board that they meet best practices for patient safety, communications and ethics.”
In addition to rigorous standards, board-certified emergency physicians receive an additional two to three years of training, focused specifically on pediatric emergency medicine. Bon Secours hopes to have 100% of the Physicians who work in St. Mary’s Pediatric Emergency Department to become board-certified.
We are thrilled to have reached this goal because this advanced level of training and certification allows for a significant difference in the quality of medical care we can provide to children and their families when they arrive in our emergency department.” -William Lennarz, M.D., chief medical officer of pediatric services, Bon Secours Virginia.
As part of a $12 million campus renovation and expansion, Bon Secours expanded a completely child centered pediatric emergency department at St. Mary’s Hospital in 2013. Now Bon Secours treats more than 20,000 children each year and continues to invest in the Pediatric Emergency Department at St. Mary’s. St. Mary’s Hospital was the only emergency department in Virginia to be selected as one of 17 hospitals to be a recipient of the 2014 Lantern Award from the Emergency Nurses Association. The Emergency Nurses Association is a national organization which recognizes exceptional practice and innovative performance in emergency care.
In addition to having a separate pediatric emergency department, St. Mary’s for Kids offers pediatric specialists and subspecialists in cardiology, cleft and craniofacial, critical care and critical care transport, dentistry, endocrinology and diabetes, gastroenterology, hematology-oncology, hospice and palliative care, hospitalists, infectious disease, neonatal-perinatal medicine, neurology, orthopaedics, pediatric development, plastic surgery, pulmonary diseases, rheumatology and urology.
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