Urological Concerns with Colorectal Patients Overview

What we're gonna do now is just go over the overview of why it's important to have 1, a collaborative program and 2, urologists involved in the care of your children. We understand that coming to a hospital can be daunting to families, and uh, you know, one of the questions that we often hear is, why does my child need so many doctors? And the reality is that, you know, children with interectal malformations need a number of specialists, specifically the colorectal surgeons, urologists, and for our female patients, having a gynecologist involved right from the get-go ensures that we're providing this holistic care. And here at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, we truly believe in the Jesuit principle of cua personalis. Which is Latin for care of the whole patient, to the whole, whole individual, and that is one of our missions to ensure that every child that we're privileged to take care of, that we provide you with that holistic care, and we're not just focusing on specific organs. So at this point, uh, I'm going to have um Debbie Reeves, our care manager, talk about the importance of why we need to have collaborative care models specifically geared around taking care of children with anorectal malformations. Um, and first and foremost, why do we need a collaborative care model? Because it's the right thing to do. Because these children have complicated conditions that affect multibody systems and failure for care providers to understand what's going on with the care of the whole child can result in problems with safety, unnecessary anesthetics, increased costs, and inconvenience for families, all of which we want to mitigate and avoid. In addition, parents tell us that that's what they want. Nothing frustrates parents more often than to hear that they go to one provider, hear a whole plan, and then on to another provider of a different specialty, and nobody knows what was said at the other visit. And so we hear from parents over and over again that I want my care providers to talk to each other. I want them to decide together what's the best thing for my child. Um, I want everybody to be thinking about my child's. As a child and not as a body part, and so that's why collaborative care is important, um, parents and patients often don't understand the the maze of modern healthcare, you're, you're receiving care um through your primary care physician, your clinic, the urgent care, a hospital, physicians, um, ambulatory care after admissions. If we are not providing care in a collaborative manner with everyone working together to give your child the best care in the safest manner, then we've failed, and our goal here at Cincinnati Children's is to do exactly the opposite of that, but to, to give your child the care that they need in a way that is carefully thought out, discussed amongst all the care providers, and um then. Presented to you, the family, and to your child in the safest manner possible. Um, when we have a new referral for a child with colorectal needs, um, anorectal malformation. Of any type. We all meet together. We meet weekly actually um with our teams, the colorectal team, the urology team, uh, gynecology, um. And this meeting includes the physicians, the nurses, the nurse practitioners, even the surgery schedulers, so that we discuss each child's history, um, their current concerns, our concerns about the child, and together we develop a plan for the safest, most complete. Evaluation. In a visit that is the least amount of time possible, um, in a manner that is convenient for the family that provides that um. Families are not making multiple visits to see multiple providers when we could have all arranged a visit in a few days. What we want to avoid in the care of our patients are silos, and silos are when, um, care providers don't talk to each other. Silos are when you only go to the urologist to talk about urology. Um, you go to the colorectal surgeon and they don't know what the urologist is doing. And so they make a decision about surgery, um, when they have no idea that the urologist might need to take the child to surgery. Or someone else takes this child to surgery for an abdominal procedure when someday that child might need a kidney transplant without any thought about how should we preplan for 10 years from now when this child might need a kidney transplant. So silos fragment care and reduce the safety and care. And so that's our main goal is to avoid that and to provide safe collaborative care for your child. This is some of the colorectal team at Society of Children's, and it's our, it's our collaborative team. It's, it includes our nurses and physicians from urology, gynecology, colorectal, and these are the team members you will meet if you happen to come here for care. Thank you, Debbie. So that's a nice overview of why it is so important, critically important in this day and age of ensuring that you truly are seeking out collaborative care providers for your child's healthcare needs. It is the safest way. It ensures that we have a safety net for your child's healthcare needs. Um, sometimes even with the best intentions, if we're duplicating care or overlooking some of the medications and the interactions, something as simple as that could have devastating complications, and so by working together, we're providing your child with a much safer outcome.