Burn Center Rounds Out Treatment Capabilities at Indy Hospital
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowAscension-St. Vincent says new additions at its Indianapolis campus mean the hospital can now handle any emergency patient regardless of age or injury. The health system recently opened a new burn center for both adult and pediatric patients on the same day it opened a new pediatric trauma center at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, also located on the flagship campus. Dr. Jeffrey Gibbs, medical director of the St. Vincent Burn Center the additions rounds out the health system’s capabilities to treat traumatic injuries.
In an interview with Business of Health Reporter Kylie Veleta, Gibbs said the additions are all-encompassing under one roof.
“For instance, if you had a family that was involved in a house fire and then was brought to the burn center, we’d be able to place the parents and the children next to each other within the burn unit,” said Gibbs. “If they had other traumatic injuries, the pediatric ICU and the trauma ICU are just a short distance down the hall, so everyone is in very close relationship to each other.”
Gibbs says the addition of a burn center brings more benefits than just rounding out the hospital’s capabilities.
“Burn centers across the country usually run at very high capacity, so you’re basically adding eight additional beds to the regional capabilities of Indiana and the Midwest as a whole,” he said.
The burn center has two hydrotherapy rooms, which is used for daily wound care, as well as an in-unit physical therapy area, and shower carts in each of the eight rooms. Gibbs says everything a patient needs can be taken care of in the unit until they are ready to go home or be transferred to a rehabilitation facility.
Gibbs says another unique feature of the burn center is the addition of surgeons that are board certified in general surgery, surgical critical care and plastic surgery, which helps create a plan for long-term treatment.
“Having surgeons that have both the acute training and the reconstructive training allows us to formulate that plan a little bit better and implement it a little bit more seamlessly across the spectrum of care,” he said.