Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital is one of a handful of hospitals in the United States that provide rehabilitation and subacute medical treatment for children, regardless of the family's ability to pay. Ranken Jordan is a private, not-for-profit, specialty pediatric rehabilitation hospital located in Maryland Heights, Missouri. Ranken Jordan has built a unique, free-standing 60-bed state-of-the-art facility, which was financed on donations and private investment. The hospital treats infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–21.
About
For children with complex medical conditions such as brain injuries or complications due to premature birth, Ranken Jordan helps bridge the gap between traditional hospital treatment and the comforts of home. Ranken Jordan provides interdisciplinary, specialized care, rehabilitation, and treatment for children 2-weeks to 21 years of age. Ranken Jordan is equipped with nursing care, education facilitation services, physical, occupational, speech, respiratory, and recreation therapies, outpatient therapy evaluations and treatment services, comprehensive, interdisciplinary child development programming and social services. With a large staff of medical professionals and community volunteers, each child at Ranken Jordan is given individualized attention, so that a stay in the hospital offers all the growth and rewards of being raised at home. The facility treats children with injuries and illnesses including, but not limited to:
The facility includes: 60 inpatient pediatric beds, therapy gym and aqua therapy pool, developmental testing and child-centered activity areas, computer center, art therapy room, music and movement room, life skills kitchen, and a fully accessible playground both indoor and outdoor. Ranken Jordan is currently the only pediatric specialty hospital in Missouri, and one of only five such facilities in the nation. Children are admitted by referrals from other pediatric health care facilities and from children's hospitals.
Medical advances are saving more sick and injured children than ever before. However, these children often need comprehensive, ongoing care. Ranken Jordan specializes in this growing need for sub-acute, traditional care. In the past five years, Ranken Jordan has created roughly 200 permanent, high-skill jobs without cutting a single position, wage or benefit. The type of medically complex patient's Ranken Jordan treats represent a portion of the one-half of one percent of the healthcare population whose cost of care is an estimated 30% of total healthcare cost of the US population. Many of Ranken Jordan's cases are not covered under insurance. While reimbursement relieves some of the financial burden, Ranken Jordan makes decisions to care for children, regardless of reimbursement or the family's ability to pay. No child is turned away.
Mission
In a letter to President Obama, Dr. Nick Holekamp writes, "Since the work of childhood is play, we've built a playful environment that maximizes normal socialization and interactivity while providing a wide array of developmentally stimulating program opportunities." Ranken Jordan is a pediatric bridge hospital providing a continuum of care for medically complicated children and their families.
Programs
Inpatient
Ranken Jordan provides 24-hour nursing care and medical supervision for children who are discharged from full-service tertiary care hospitals and are too ill to return home. They provide care for technologically dependent children and patients with high rehabilitative care needs.
Outpatient
This program provides physical, occupational, and speech therapy through an interdisciplinary approach for children who no longer require 24-hour care, yet still need individualized rehabilitation. In 2004, 1,926 quarter-hour sessions of outpatient rehab were provided.
Day treatment
The Day Treatment Program provides intensive therapy services, developmental intervention and caregiver education in an interdisciplinary model to meet the rehabilitative needs of children with medical and physical challenges. The goal is to increase independent function and to assist children in reaching their maximum potential and to transition back into their community.
Art therapy
The Kodner Gallery Art Therapy Program includes many important elements for a medically challenged child's development: muscular coordination, sensory stimulation, educational appreciation of art and emerging self-esteem expression. The therapy includes working with nationally known artists.
Pulmonary
Pulmonary Care Services are for children who require specialized pulmonary technology and care.
Brain injury rehabilitation
Focus on cognitive, motor skills, communication, and academic achievement smoothing the child's re-entry into home, school, and community.
History
Ranken Jordan began as a small facility in St. Louis, Missouri on April 9, 1941 through the philanthropy of founder, Mary Ranken Jordan. It was a small, yet state-of-the-art facility, located in the country. Children came to convalesce from polio, osteomyelitis and bone tuberculosis. Located west of Lindbergh Boulevard, the facility had no air conditioning. Many summer nights, the children would sleep on porch roofs, built especially for that purpose. As the children's bodies healed, they went on their way and others arrived to fill the beds. Mary Ranken Jordan visited regularly to have tea and talk with the children, all of whom she knew by name. The total expenses for the first year of Ranken Jordan were just over $15,100. Sixty-five years later, the average cost to run Ranken Jordan for a single day is $8,200. Mary Ranken-Jordan died in 1962 and left a sizable endowment to maintain her dream.
