Is a Big Name Hospital Always Better for Kids?

Children should be able to receive adequate care as fast as adults do. Sadly, pediatric care becomes less accessible the farther you live from the city. This reality worsens an already stressful situation.

As a parent, it must be heartbreaking to see your kids go through their medical ordeal longer than they should whenever your nearest emergency department has to transfer them to a larger facility dozens of miles away. Why are community hospitals and health centers doing this? Is a big-name hospital always better for kids? The answer is a bit complicated and unfortunate.

Pediatric Care Is a Specialty

The health care professionals specializing in pediatric care can also provide primary care to adults, but not the other way around. Pediatric units caring for ill grown-ups during the pandemic demonstrate this concept perfectly

The limited number of medical specialists trained to provide pediatric care means most health facilities lack the proper staff and equipment to address your children’s unique needs.

Even worse, pediatrics has become an unattractive career path for a growing number of aspiring doctors over the past decade. 2024 saw 6.1% fewer medical graduates applying to this field, rendering about 30% of pediatric residency positions vacant.

Less pay is a significant factor motivating future physicians to stay away from pediatrics. In fact, pediatric specialists are some of the least compensated secondary care providers in the United States.

Pediatricians don’t receive the same level of public and private insurance providers as their adult-care counterparts. Insurance plans tend to undervalue nonprocedural care, which represents most of what pediatricians perform.

Community Hospitals Are Ill-Equipped and Disappearing

Many people begin to believe that big-name hospitals are usually better for kids because the smaller ones are cost-burdened. Four hundred thirty-two of the 46% of rural hospitals losing money are at high risk of closure. One hundred eighty-two have closed or changed operating models, excluding inpatient care, since 2010.

Medicaid expansion is one of the factors driving rural hospitals to financial instability. Health care facilities with limited capacity are more likely to lose money serving individuals, especially kids, on Medicaid.

Community hospitals with fewer than 25 beds but can’t earn the “critical access” designation for being closer than 35 miles from the next-nearest health care facility are ineligible to receive federal funding. They may feel more pressure to maximize their operations to stay afloat.

Many smaller hospitals may prioritize adult care to become financially viable. Grown-ups are more likely to require more profit-generating tests and stay admitted long enough to justify high administrative costs.

These facilities may invest less in equipment for children, which may reduce their capabilities to laceration repair, computed tomography scanning, and other basic acute pediatric care services. Parents of kids with more complicated medical needs would have no choice but to go to larger and farther hospitals.

If you live in a rural area, the situation can be frustrating. The financial realities many rural hospitals face indirectly affect innocent kids who deserve to receive urgent, adequate care.

On the bright side, community health centers are stepping up. They’ve preserved access to primary care services in many communities through collaborations and facility acquisitions.

Capability Is Declining Across the Board

The promise of getting proper pediatric care helps justify transferring ailing or injured kids from one health facility to another. However, even children’s hospitals can no longer keep up with the influx of kids coming from different places.

This phenomenon has been going on for over a decade, and the pandemic only worsened it. More parents are learning it after experiencing the wait time firsthand.

Learning that your young ones may have to stay in the emergency department for weeks or months while waiting for pediatric beds to open would be unpleasantly shocking.

A chronic bed shortage proves that big-name hospitals aren’t necessarily better for kids — especially those dealing with a mental health crisis. Sadly, it’s just a symptom, not the disease.

Children’s hospitals typically can’t free up general pediatric beds accordingly because the health facilities that should accommodate kids with more complex medical needs cannot take them in.

The situation causes a domino effect. For example, specialized mental health centers that can’t admit kids having a breakdown negatively impact sickly children in pediatric intensive care units needing general beds and those in emergency departments requiring critical care.

Standards Are Rising for Pediatric Readiness

Pediatric health facilities have to adapt to new standards while solving their capacity challenges. In 2022, the American College of Surgeons began requiring trauma centers to assess their preparedness for pediatric resuscitation and their ability to timely transfer injured children needing more specialized care for definitive treatment.

Health facilities, big and small, dedicating resources to pediatric care should satisfy this new requirement easily. Rural hospitals with meager resources can identify the gaps in pediatric readiness but lack the means to actually address their deficiencies.

Pediatrically Ready Hospitals Are Always Better for Kids — Big-Name or Small-Time

Big-name hospitals shouldn’t be the best care option for children, but they may eventually be the only ones left at the rate American health care is trending. The authorities should reduce the financial barriers smaller facilities face and create incentives for the private sector to invest in pediatric care to ensure all children receive ample medical attention where they live.

p.s. Related posts:

5 Top Books with a Doctor, Nurse, or Hospital Theme for Children at Every Age

Broken Arm Surgery at Mass General Hospital

Advancing Careers in Health Science: Education, Skills, and Opportunities

10 Children’s Books about the COVID-19 Pandemic

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