Children's health

    Our approach to pediatric care

    Your newborn doesn’t come with a manual, unfortunately. It’s up to parents to make sure their children are safe, happy and healthy. SIU Medicine can help. With more than 300 health care providers dedicated to healing patients and making communities healthier, we’re well-equipped to care for your newborn children. 

    As an academic medical community, SIU Medicine is home to providers who aren’t just skilled diagnosticians and healers. They’re also training the next generation of specialists while conducting research that has the potential to change children’s lives and restore hope. From caring for the tiniest babies in a state-of-the-art NICU helping children facing food insecurities to treating children with advanced cancers and blood disorders, pediatricians, neonatologists, family medicine doctors, child psychiatrists and pediatric surgeons collaborate to give your tiny human the most compassionate care, the most treatment options and the best outcomes.

    A Medical Home is all about the patient, your child. Caring about the patient is the most important job of SIU Medicine – Pediatrics, your Patient Centered Medical Home. In this personal model of health care, your child’s primary care provider leads a team of health care professionals that collectively take responsibility for their care. They make sure your child gets the care they need in wellness and illness to heal their body, mind and spirit. Your child’s personal provider and an extended team of health professionals build a relationship in which they know you, your family situation, your child’s medical history and health issues. In turn, you come to trust and rely on them for expert, evidence-based health care answers that are suited entirely to your child and your family. 

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    Pediatric specialty care

    SIU Medicine is home to more than a dozen pediatric subspecialties. When your child is ill, stay close to home and rely on the expertise of our providers.

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    Patient-Centered Medical Home

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    PCMH Logo

    The Patient-centered medical home is a model of care that puts patients at the forefront of care. PCMHs build better relationships between people and their clinical care teams. Participation in an NCQA recognition program demonstrates that the practice or clinician values quality health care delivery and the latest clinical protocols to ensure that patients receive the best care at the right time.
     
    Research shows that patient-centered medical homes:

    • Improve quality: Patients get the treatment that they need when they need it.
    • Reduce costs: They prevent expensive and avoidable hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and complications. This is especially true for patients with complex chronic conditions.
    • Improve the patient experience: They provide the personalized, comprehensive coordinated care that patients want.
    • Improve staff satisfaction: PCMHs have systems and structures that help staff work more efficiently.

    Patient-Centered Specialty Practice

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    PCSP

    The PCSP Recognition program builds on the success of the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition program by recognizing specialty practices that excel in delivering high-quality, patient-centered care. It focuses on proactive coordination and sharing information. Everyone in the practice works as a team to coordinate care with primary care, other referring clinicians, community resources and secondary services.

    Practices are encouraged to organize care around patients and coordinate and track care over time. Specialty practices are required to organize care across all practices and patient visits—centering care on the patient, instead of on the care setting.
     

    Latest news

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    SIU Pediatrics in Decatur moves to new location

    SIU Pediatrics in Decatur is moving locations from 441 West Hay to 2 Memorial Drive suite 305, next to Decatur Memorial Hospital, as of May 1, 2023. The location will be temporary until their new
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    New partnership to combat food insecurities in children

    According to the USDA, 10 percent of U.S. households and 12.5 percent of households with children have limited or uncertain access to nutritionally healthy food. Pediatric cardiologist Enas Shanshen
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    Brenna Westlake was born in December 2011 with Harlequin Ichthyosis (HI), a very rare and sometimes fatal skin disease. Babies born with HI lack a protein that moves fats to the skin’s surface layer to create a strong barrier.

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