Covenant Children’s recently opened a new OB and Emergency Department hospitalist program.
The department is specifically designed for pregnant and postpartum women.
“A regular emergency room sees patients for every need,” Marybeth Murphy, the director of business development said. “For OBED, we are only seeing patients who are pregnant or postpartum patients up to 6 weeks.”
When patients enter the OBED, they will see an OB certified obstetrician each time.
“Any pregnant patient that arrives to our unit is seen almost immediately,” Jennifer Huber said. “Their evaluation as far as what’s going on with their condition is begun within minutes.”
Huber is the nurse manager for labor and delivery at Covenant Children’s. She also said this department is located close to the labor and delivery unit at Covenant Children’s.
“We have ultrasound capability for all stages of pregnancy,” she said. “We have the immediate availability of surgical unit in case the patient needed to be delivered emergently.”
“We’re adjacent to the labor and delivery unit so if they are found to be in labor and they need to be delivered for some reason then it’s immediately available to them,” she added.
Another thing is anytime a patient comes in, their physician is given notice of their visit and what they were there for.
“If a patient comes to the OBED they are seen by the hospitalist that serves 24/7 in this hospital,” Murphy said, “If they need to be delivered or they are ready to be delivered, we will cal their OB/GYN that they have seen throughout their pregnancy and if they’re available, they will come and deliver the baby. But typically they’re seen by the OBED physician and then that physician will advise their physician they’ve been seen and what they have been seen for.”
More information can be found about the department here.
