Neonatal Pediatric Services

Neonatal and pediatric respiratory care practitioners (RCPs) working at Adventist Health White Memorial are specially trained therapists, caring for patients in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), pediatric intensive care unit (PICU), labor and delivery, and pediatric floor. They also assist with pediatric emergencies in the emergency room.

RCPs who work in the 28-bed NICU, 28-bed pediatric unit and 5-bed PICU treat more than 1,000 children each year. They are an integral part of the Adventist Health White Memorial healthcare team.

A hundred percent of our neonatal and pediatric RCPs are registered respiratory therapists (RRT) and have taken the neonatal pediatric specialty board exam. RCPs treat patients ranging in age from birth through adolescence presenting various disease processes including asthma, cystic fibrosis, congenital heart and lung disease, RSV, and other issues.

Our neonatal and pediatric respiratory therapists are responsible for therapeutic interventions including:

• Ventilator management with conventional as well as high-frequency oscillatory (HFO) ventilation
• Specialty gas monitoring and/or delivery
• Intubation
• Nitric oxide administration
• Blood gas acquisition and interpretation
• Specialized student training

RCPs who work in the NICU/PICU are part of the pediatric RRT and Code Blue teams, which respond to all neonatal and pediatric emergencies. NICU respiratory therapists also are part of the resuscitation team that attends all high-risk and C-section births.

Additional services include NICU and PICU transport team members. Our transport team travels by ambulance to community hospitals to stabilize and transport infants and children to Adventist Health White Memorial, where they can receive more specialized care.