Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital 2023 Donor Impact Update The first half of 2023 was marked by an unprecedented amount of growth and expansion, grounded in our mandate to provide world-class, accessible, comprehensive, and compassionate pediatric care. We started the year by opening our Inova Children’s Multispecialty Clinic at Willow Oaks. This space houses fourteen specialties in a child-friendly environment including cardiology, cardiac surgery, outpatient rehabilitation, general and thoracic surgery, and the sleep medicine practice at the nearby Inova Children’s Sleep Center. As a result of this expansion, we are thrilled to have welcomed over one hundred new pediatric providers, nurses, and administrative staff to the Inova Children’s family. This spring, we became the first hospital in the Eastern Region, and the 15th hospital worldwide, to receive the ChildKind Certification. This designation is awarded to hospitals with a strong, institutional commitment to the prevention and treatment of pediatric pain. Once again, Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital ranks among the top hospitals in the nation for neonatology according to U.S. News & World Report. We are ranked #46 in the country, #3 in the Commonwealth of Virginia and #17 in the Mid-Atlantic region.
“The nurses, child life specialists, and doctors at Inova are truly spectacular! At this heart breaking time, they were caring, informative, and clear with their words. I cannot thank them enough for all they bring to your hospital daily!”
Child Life Outpatient Care Child life has expanded into our outpatient specialty clinic at Willow Oaks, including in nephrology, endocrinology, infectious disease, and cardiology clinic. This creates a patientcentric “one stop shop” to see your doctor and get all your labs done all in one appointment. We have also onboarded multiple new team members with expertise in Pediatric Case Management and Social Work, Thanks to these positions we are helping more families than we ever have. We are able to streamline services with community health and ensure children and their families receive the assistance they need. At Willow Oaks there is a Food Closet where families identified as food insecure are provided a bag of non-perishable food based on their diagnosis, as well as a RX to food bank.
In our first 100 days, we have seen 10,713 patients and screened over 1,000 patients for food insecurity.
Grief Support Being able to name feelings is the first step in emotional learning. Child Life Specialist, Cami’s wood peg people activity can help young children begin to develop these skills.
Trauma Informed Care Crisis Prevention Institute Training Programs provide our Child Life Specialists with trauma-informed, evidence-based, and fully accredited training on how to recognize and respond to crisis situations including prevention, de-escalation techniques, and behavior management.
Child Life Innovations The Child Life department is keeping up with the times and leveraging the power of technology to support our patient’s psychosocial needs. Emerging research tells us that the clinical implications of therapeutic technology are growing every day. We are lucky to have a tech expert of our very own, Child Life Specialist, Ben! Ben will manage an unprecedented iPad donation for pediatrics across the entire system. His role will also harness technology to provide services like 3-D printing for teaching and memory-making activities, and CCTV/other recordings to deliver additional programming and therapeutic storytelling opportunities. We are excited for Ben to elevate how we can harness technology to support our patients and families.
Parent Testimonials “Thank you for making the extra effort for pediatric patients! It is very impactful to have a child life specialist and kid-friendly staff.” “The person who explained the procedure and gave our daughter stickers to put on her mask was absolutely extraordinary. One of the kindest most helpful people we've ever met in a hospital setting! She made the experience much less frightening for our daughter.” Parent of pediatric MRI patient
“By making something scary or traumatic a little bit easier, we can help decrease the amount of trauma a child experiences and holds onto,” - Holly Senn, CCLSIII, certified Child Life Specialist who works with patients in the hematologyoncology unit at Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital.
Cryobank Financial Assistance Since 2018 we have been working with a small team of pediatric oncologists and Inova Schar Cancer Institute leaders to improve the support we provide to adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with a new cancer diagnosis at risk for treatment-related infertility. The American Society of Clinical Oncology, American Society of Reproductive Medicine, and the American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend AYAs receive the opportunity to preserve fertility prior to cancer treatment that may threaten fertility. Sperm cryopreservation for males prior to initiation of cancer treatment represents the standard of care in oncology. We have partnered with the Fairfax Cryobank to coordinate sperm cryopreservation for AYA males, and the Fairfax Cryobank now offers a reduced fee for any patient treated at Inova and offers upfront processing and the first year of storage for $350.
New Music Therapist In April, we hired Mariagracia Rivas Berger “MG” as a music therapist to work on expanding services throughout the hospital. MG is coming from Children’s National where she spent 6 years in the inpatient and clinic for the Center for Cancer and Blood Disorders. At Inova, she will be covering all inpatient units outside of NICU and hopes to grow the program to increase music therapy services across all pediatrics units. In August alone she held 86 music therapy sessions!
“I introduced services to a new baby patient in the room with his mother figure. As soon as I mentioned “music therapy,” she responded with a smile stating she sings to him daily. She proceeded to transition him to her lap and began singing “Un Millón de Amigos,” a song focused on friendships and hopefulness. The baby looked at her, held a little drum, and appeared calm, intermittently kicking with excitement. After the first song, the “Mother” opened up about an original song she wrote for him and began to sing it while holding him to close her chest. In that moment, as she sang about her love for him, and as the guitar provided a container for her words, the hospital room faded into the background. It was just her and him, making eye contact, and connecting through the music.
Asher’s Story: ECMO Saves Lives Inova's ECMO program recently received the Platinum Award for Excellence in Life Support from the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), the internationally recognized institution for ECMO. The award recognizes programs worldwide that distinguish themselves with processes, procedures and systems that promote excellence and exceptional ECMO care. For 18-month-old Asher, ECMO proved to be a lifesaving treatment. The toddler came to lnova's Emergency Department with acute respiratory distress after suffering from a choking episode on strawberries and nuts. Asher's grateful parents say ECMO saved their son's life, "ECMO did what it was supposed to do - gave our son's lungs time to heal. Asher is now safely back home with us, and a healthy, thriving little boy."
We spent 31 days at Inova and we spent 31 days in awe of Asher’s care team. The combination of skill, empathy, confidence, and compassion that we consistently saw from Asher’s doctors, nurses, and ECMO specialists got our whole family through an unimaginable medical crisis. We will forever be grateful to have had access to such an amazing facility with doctors that had the assuredness and foresight to put Asher on ECMO at the right time and safely transition him off.
Justin’s Story: DC United’s Biggest Fan
Justin and his Inova Care Team
Justin was supposed to start high school this fall, instead, he has been making friends and hanging out with the team on the 9th floor at Inova Children’s. He has had many setbacks and unfortunately has been with us for over two weeks. Justin is a huge DC United soccer fan, and thanks to Lindsey Simpson, Inova RN Unit Supervisor, and in partnership with Kim Alberty, Inova Marketing Executive in Pediatrics and Kevin Giambi, Inova Marketing Executive in Sports Medicine, we were able to brighten Justin’s day and give him tickets to a game and his family something to look forward to.
NICU Story: A Big Brother’s Journey
One of our NICU patients was a HIE (cooling) baby and we were unsure of the prognosis and overall outcome. One of our Child Life Specialists did a sibling visit with his big brother (who was 9 years old) right after the baby was born and frequently after. During these visits, the big brother was very quiet, but our Child Life Specialist was there to answer any questions he had at the bedside and facilitate visits. The baby ended up going home after 5 weeks requiring no medical equipment.
On the day of the baby’s discharge, the family wanted to say goodbye and the older brother had something he wanted to give his Child Life Specialist. He gave her this note with this bear that his family went and made. He picked a blue robe because he knew that was her favorite color and recorded a voice memo in the bear thanking her for helping him learn about his brother and meet him for the first few times before he got to go home.
NICU Story: March of Dimes Partnership Child Life has paired up with March of Dimes to have a monthly sibling group in the NICU! Each month they pick a book and activity that goes along with the book. Pictured is the book “Scribble Stones” about a stone who was unsure of how he was going to be amazing and ends up being a paperweight. Throughout the book, the stone meets others who need help on what to decorate and invites others to use teamwork and creativity to create art. Siblings and parents were able to paint rocks and tap into their creative side while talking with other families about their NICU journey.
Thank You for Your Generous Support Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Team
Thank you for supporting Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital. Our accomplishments and powerful patient and family stories demonstrate the exceptional dedication and expertise of our incredible pediatric team, whose passion and commitment continue to provide the highest quality of specialized care for the littlest patients in the communities we serve. We are deeply grateful to be on this journey with all of you.
For more information on how you can make a difference at Inova L.J. Murphy Children's Hospital, please contact Kirstin McArthur at Kirstin.McArthur@inova.org.