Buffy Freeland had just gotten her 6-month-old daughter Desiah to sleep when a squad of doctors, students and interns gathered in the darkened hospital room.
She listened intently as they discussed Desiah?s problems breathing, reviewed X-rays of enlarged lungs struggling for air and considered possible treatments.
Then they turned to Desiah?s mother.
“What does Mom think?” Dr. Ina Stephens asked.
“Mom is happy that we?re not sent home to go through the same thing every few weeks,” she said. “I?m happy to get an official evaluation.”
At the University of Maryland Hospital for Children, Stephens and other pediatricians discuss medical care openly with parents every day.
Across town at Johns Hopkins Children?s Center, doctors now open the discussions to parents as part of a growing trend in pediatric hospital care.
Locally, most emergency doctors include parents in discussions.
At Mercy Medical Center, doctors invite parents into the room during rounds, said Dr. Ronald Gutberlet, pediatric chair. “Our pediatric floor is all private rooms. … In the term nursery, [newborn] babies are examined in the mother?s room, if possible.”
“What?s so important about it is the mom knows the patient more than anybody, and that?s a fact. Mom probably spent the night and may have new things to say, may not agree with the doctors and has a lot of questions,” Stephens said. “As a result, they?re completely comfortable with why we?re doing what we?re doing.”
The policy is also good business, said Dr. Jack Gladstein, director of the pediatric inpatient program at U.Md.?s Hospital for Children. Patients get out earlier during the day and spend an average of one day less in the hospital.
Parents are included in drawing up discharge instructions, he said. “If the parents hear those things in the morning, they can work on those things with the kid during the day. The parents are involved, they say, ?Ah, now I understand what I need to do.? They get out earlier.”
Hospital stays cost about $1,600 to $2,100 per day, according to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
“What we found is what?s good for families is good for business,” Gladstein said.
