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Don & Lori Watts Pediatric Center

The care of sick children in the region took a big step forward with the opening in 2009 of the 25,000-square-foot Don and Lori Watts Pediatric Center.

The new center offers young patients and their families more room designed specifically for their needs, surroundings that are clearly “kid-friendly” and a doubling of the number of pediatric patient rooms.

Highlights of the new pediatric center include:

• An ‘Under the Sea’ theme carried out on everything from the floors to light fixtures.
• 20 large, private rooms, which nearly doubles the number of beds available for pediatrics patients at Kadlec. Each room has its own large bathroom with shower, access to age-appropriate online games and movies as well as sleeping accommodations for parents.
• A family room with a kitchen, a dining area where families can sit around a table to eat a meal together and a washer and dryer. “When families are here for an extended length of time, it is important to have a place where they can gather that is quite private and they can just be a family,” he said.
• A playroom with age-appropriate activities for toddlers through school-age children.

Construction of the new pediatric center was made possibly by a fund raising effort led by the Kadlec Foundation, raising more than $7 million toward the project.

Children hospitalized at Kadlec Regional Medical Center receive around–the–clock care from full-time Pediatric Hospitalists. These are specially-trained pediatricians who work solely in the hospital and do not have an outside practice. This allows them to focus exclusively on hospitalized children.

Kadlec has also formed a partnership with Seattle Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center.

Collaborating with Children’s assures that Kadlec nurses, doctors and other health care professionals have the ability to easily consult with their colleagues in Seattle. Sharing protocols and educational opportunities assures the finest, up-to-date pediatric practices are in place throughout Kadlec from the emergency department, to the nursery, to the dedicated pediatric unit and across all of the clinical therapies.

The Pediatric Center is equipped with special video-conference technology which facilitates daily interaction between the Kadlec pediatric hospitalists and the Seattle Children’s Hospital specialist.

From the perspective of a child, a hospital can be a scary place with unfamiliar people, strange equipment, a foreign vocabulary and often the sharp needles that accompany a hospital stay. It’s hard for children to understand most – or any – of it.
That’s where Kadlec’s certified Child Life Specialist – the first in the area – comes in.

This specialist uses toys and other techniques to help a child understand the hospital experience, to use play to help work out fears and to be with a child during procedures.

The Don & Lori Watts Pediatrics Unit is located on the fifth floor of the River Pavilion.

For more Information: Don & Lori Watts Pediatric Center: (509)  942-2686.