Indiana University School of Medicine

 

 

 

 

 

 

Facilities and Resources

Riley Hospital for Children
The Pediatric Pulmonary program is located at Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health in Indianapolis. Riley is the primary teaching facility for the Pediatric Department of the Indiana University School of Medicine and is the main tertiary referral center for children in the State of Indiana. The Pediatric Pulmonology service typically admits over 2,000 inpatients, including greater than 650 new patients per year. Patients are admitted to age and service appropriate inpatient units. Critically ill children are admitted to the 36 bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. Riley is also home to an internationally ranked ECMO program in the state's most comprehensive neonatal unit and the world's largest pediatric sleep disorders center.

Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
The Newborn Intensive Care Unit is a Level III facility with 60 Level 3C beds, accounting for 800 admissions yearly. The Section of Pulmonology is consulted for special problems in the NICU and is actively involved in the long-term management and follow-up of infants with apnea, BPD and other chronic respiratory disorders of infancy.

The Nurture Center (Infant ICU)
The Nurture Center (Infant ICU) is a 6 bed intensive care facility for infants with chronic ventilator dependency - usually secondary to BPD. The Section of Pulmonology provides the day to day management of ventilation and other respiratory support needs of these children. Specialists in child development and rehabilitation coordinate the developmental needs of the patients. This unit provides a unique opportunity for longitudinal management of chronic respiratory insufficiency of infants.

Simon Tower – Riley Expansion
The Riley Hospital for Children Simon Family Tower at Indiana University Health is a new 10-story inpatient building designed to add capacity, increase efficiency and demonstrates our commitment to providing family-centered care. The first phase of the Riley Simon Family Tower at IU Health opened in January 2011 and the project is scheduled for completion in 2013.

The $475 million expansion will increase access to Riley Hospital for Children at IU Health's expert care, highlighting its role as the state's preeminent pediatrics medical provider, and is the first step toward allowing Riley Hospital for Children to meet its goal to be one of the largest and best children's hospitals in the nation.

The new Simon Family Tower is a critical component of a $500 million, 10-year strategic plan that Riley Hospital announced in 2005 to benefit Indiana's children, families and communities.
Upon completion, the Riley Simon Family Tower will offer:

  • 10 stories
  • 675,000 square feet
  • All private rooms
  • 300 total beds, including:
    • 48-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU)
    • 60-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU)
  • State-of-the-art Operating Room and Cardiac Catheterization Lab
  • Expanded Emergency Department, Burn Unit and Cancer Center
  • Radiology suite

The Pulmonary unit is located on 8W and is a 24 private bed pediatric pulmonary unit, primary ages being 0-18. The average daily census is approximately 17, but is typically at or near capacity in the colder months. The unit itself has 3 physician workrooms, a very large conference room, a learning lab for staff, a playroom for toddler/school age children, a teen room, a tub room for patients, a laundry room, and a sanctuary of healing for staff. Nurse/patient ratios are usually 2:1 or 3:1.

The Riley Simon Family Tower at IU Health functions as a home away from home, putting family care and comfort at the forefront. Highlights of the new building include:

Family-centered amenities on each inpatient floor (e.g., family lounges, kitchens, business centers, showers, laundry facilities, breast pumping rooms).

Inpatient floors identical in design and grouped according to specialty, making it easier to navigate.

An ecosystem design theme (e.g., tropical rainforests, beaches, oceans, forests, mountains) each with colors, textures, furniture and art to match.

Photos for Health™, a unique art initiative dedicated to health and well-being. Staff, patients, families and photography enthusiasts were invited to submit their original photographs of animals and nature for display.

Riley Outpatient Center
Ambulatory care is provided in the Riley Outpatient Center (ROC). This four-floor ambulatory care facility provides patient examination rooms, laboratory facilities, radiology services and pharmacy services. The ROC also houses the Pediatric Cardiopulmonary Center or pulmonary diagnostic laboratories. The pulmonology clinics have approximately 12,000 outpatient visits yearly and average 40 new patients for outpatient diagnostic evaluation weekly. Seriously ill referrals are evaluated initially in the Emergency Room, which has the facilities to provide a broad range of care from mild respiratory infection to full cardiopulmonary arrest.

In addition to general pulmonary clinics, other clinical programs with regularly scheduled sessions include the Cystic Fibrosis Clinic, BPD/Home Ventilator Clinic, Apnea Clinic, Sleep Disorders Clinic, Infant Lung Disease Clinic, Allergy Clinic, and Immune Disorders Clinic.

State of the art laboratory support includes the Pulmonary Function Laboratory, the only facility in the state devoted to the evaluation of lung function in children; the Infant Pulmonary Function laboratory; the Pediatric Sleep Disorders Center - the largest Pediatric sleep lab in the nation; and the flexible bronchoscopy suite where over 50 bronchoscopies are done monthly.

Research Resources
Research training is an integral part of the fellowship and may be in an area of basic science, translational research, or clinical research. Early in the first year of fellowship, trainees are exposed to the research activities of investigators in the Pediatric Pulmonary section as well as in the Adult Pulmonary section and in the Herman B Wells Center for Research. Areas of interest include respiratory physiology, airway inflammation and inflammatory mediators, and Cystic Fibrosis.

Work in the Wells Center focuses on both discovery basic research and translational studies, which seek to rapidly move basic or bench research findings into the clinical setting. The research programs of Wells faculty are multidisciplinary and traverse traditional clinical section boundaries. Sections represented from Riley Hospital and Department of Pediatrics includes Hematology/Oncology, Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine, Cardiac Development Biology, Endocrinology and Pulmonology.

Wells Center research programs have achieved national recognition and continue to thrive. The research endeavors of the faculty have led to an outstanding record for attaining peer-reviewed, external research funding, including funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the American Heart Association, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the Department of Defense. In 2010, the Department of Pediatrics ranked #7 nationally for NIH funding to pediatric departments.

By the end of the first year of fellowship training, a project and mentor is selected. Sufficient time, support, and guidance are given during the fellowship program to allow for completion of a meaningful research project. Fellows typically have presented their research findings at national meetings of the American Thoracic Society and/or the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and have been the first author of one or more manuscripts in journals such as the Journal of Applied Physiology and the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.