Women’s Services Advances with Support from Foundation Partners

UCHealth Memorial Hospital, delivers more babies than any other hospital in the state of Colorado with 4,649 babies in 2016 and has some of the highest scores on quality indicators of any hospital in the nation for maternal/child outcomes.  Even with the high number of patients, our two hospitals, Memorial Hospital North and Memorial Hospital Central, we provide a personal touch and caring staff who are highly trained in the care of obstetric patients and their newborn.   The Foundation recently funded ten nurses to test for their Registered Nurse Certification in Maternal Newborn Nursing and nine nurses have received their certification with one seat available for the next nurse desiring this professional step in her career.

The Foundation recently purchased nine new cardiac monitors for use on the Mother-Baby Units and the Birth Center and Labor, Delivery and Recovery Unit to support the new requirements for neonatal resuscitation.  These monitors are required should the newborn need prolonged resuscitation or chest compressions to be performed.  As these devices were fairly expensive, it was wonderful that the Foundation was able to purchase and pay for all of the required monitors!

Memorial Hospital is on the Journey to Baby Friendly Designation, a program founded by the World Health Organization to improve infant feeding and long term health benefits.  The Foundation was fundamental in providing payment for most of the required training and education hours for all of the nursing staff.  This was no small purchase as the department has over 280 staff members, most of them requiring 15 hours of classes to become proficient and meet the stringent requirements of the baby friendly guideline.  Without the help of the Foundation we would struggle with being able to fit this type of expense into our operating budget.