folks understand the big picture of what Children's Miracle Network dollars can
do well Children's Miracle Network dollars really contribute to the hospital in a
way that supports patient and family services that go above and beyond what a
hospital can do otherwise uniquely for the services that we have whether it's
the equipment or clinical services CMN really contributes in a way that allows
families to have the best services that they need the best equipment that
they need we're standing here one of our great patient rooms that has sufficient
space for families says I have two parents by the bedside and a lot of the
things that you see here in these other services we provide are enabled by CMN
hey take a look at this this is a vecta machine and it's used by the Child Life
Specialist here at the hospital Alicia talk to me about how this
machine and Children's Miracle Network help you to do your job
so Children's Miracle Network has purchased two of these vectas for us
and the vecta is a multi-sensory machine and allows children to be a
little bit more relaxed and comfortable here at the hospital there are some
tactile stimulation fiber-optic wands here a ball that allows kids a sense of
control because they can turn on and off the bubbles as they please
up top here is a projection and right now we're projecting images of fish what
my favorite thing to do with the projection is to enlarge the image on a
CT scanner and that way kids can feel like they're swimming with a fish so our
role in the hospital is to help kids cope with their hospitalizations we do
that by preparing them for upcoming procedures we like to educate them on
what to expect next and we like to play with them we like to have them become
familiarized with medical equipment we like to have them come to the playroom
and explore the environment when kids are outside of the hospital they play
and they discover and they explore the world so when they're in the hospital we
like to do that as well as Child Life Specialists we have the great honor to help
kids feel more comfortable in the hospital setting so we can use Kaia in
Pediatric Radiology to help calm down patients before their tests or
procedures make them feel a little bit more comfortable and not be so scared of
the machines and equipment and just be able to really provide that
amount of support that level of support for kids for walking into the hospital and
they're anxious they're worried that what's going on I want to introduce you
to Marisa and she's a music therapist here at Penn State Children's Hospital
and your position is funded by Children's Miracle Network that is
correct we have board certified music therapist here at the hospital which is
a research-based profession we use music to assist with pain control anxiety
management as well as self-expression emotional coping and getting the
families and kids to connect back together one of the things we do is
helps normalize the hospital environment and through that we can use its song
including she'll be coming around the mountain but talking about the hospital
so we'll see doc there's an nurses yes we will and anything to a fun tune that
they know we moved into an operating room here at the hospital here with Dr.
Cilley and Dr. Myers pediatric surgeon pediatric heart surgeon helped us
understand where Children's Miracle Network dollars help you in here well
here at Penn State Children's Hospital we are particularly proud of our
excellent results at a national level some of the best in the nation in
surgical outcomes one of the most highlighted areas is our congenital
heart surgery children's heart surgery program Dr. Myers can speak to that
well CMN has helped us tremendously you can see this heart-lung machine here
that we use every day in order to be able to repair children's hearts in the
right in this operating room an impressive machine is everything in
here is so impressive about a hundred and thirty thousand dollars to pull off
one of these machines the Children's Miracle Network has been amazing for emergency medicine
I mean just this past year they gave us an ultrasound machine so we could bring
it in right to the bedside and make critical decisions on patient care
it's really been fabulous but they've given many other things we have like this IV
pole back there with a little smiley face they've contributed that games for
children to play why they're here they've done educational things for our
nurses to help support and grow their kind of wealth of knowledge so Children's
Miracle Network dollars has helped Life Lion purchase two pediatric
critical care transport ambulances they've also helped us purchase this specialized
piece of equipment this is an isolete it has a self-contained warmer inside of it
it has its own ventilator to ventilate the children
it has IV pumps and an EKG all allowing us to monitor these patients while we're
transporting them from a community hospital back to tertiary care facility
Children's Miracle Network is huge for us
the money that we get from Children's Miracle Network provides all kinds of
different equipment that our babies need so right here this is our giraffe Omni
bed this becomes almost an equipment womb for the baby so we can care for
whatever the baby might need now especially those little ones that come
much earlier than they're supposed to we also use Children's Miracle Network
money for developmental care items positioning devices that babies need so
this is something that a teeny tiny little one would sit on top of or lay on
top of to protect their growing muscles