Comprehensive Care for Children: Exploring UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital Services and Programs

UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, an integral part of the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, stands as a leading institution dedicated to providing exceptional pediatric care. Each year, the hospital attends to over 6,000 inpatients and 100,000 outpatients, offering a complete spectrum of primary and subspecialty care tailored for infants, children, and adolescents.

A Hub of Pediatric Excellence

UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital is located within the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. It distinguishes itself as a beacon of excellence in pediatric care, attending to more than 6,000 inpatients and 100,000 outpatients annually. Care is available in all major subspecialties, including: pediatric oncology, pediatric neurology, pediatric critical care, pediatric orthopedics and pediatric cardiology, among many other areas.

The hospital's commitment to excellence is further underscored by its consistent recognition in U.S. News & World Report for its outstanding pediatric care. This acknowledgment reflects the hospital's dedication to providing world-class medical services and its continuous pursuit of advancements in pediatric medicine.

Family-Centered Care: A Holistic Approach

At UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, the family-centered care model is at the heart of its approach. This model emphasizes teamwork and collaboration, ensuring that each child receives the best possible care. By placing children at the center of the care process and actively involving families, the hospital creates a supportive and nurturing environment that promotes healing and well-being.

The hospital recognizes the unique emotional needs of children and their families. Specialists from the Chase Child Life Program provide age-appropriate resources, stress relief strategies, and therapeutic activities such as art, music and dance/movement.

Chase Child Life Program

Recognizing the unique needs of children, UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital prioritizes the emotional well-being of its young patients and their families. Specialists from the Chase Child Life Program provide age-appropriate resources, stress relief strategies and therapeutic activities such as art, music and dance/movement. The Child Life Specialists work with you, doctors and other members of the health care team to develop an age-appropriate plan of care for your child. Child Life Specialists use different methods to make sure that your child’s social, emotional and developmental needs are being met. Child Life Specialists help to empower children with knowledge and equip them with coping strategies so that they may face potential stressors with confidence.

Services provided by Child Life Specialists include:

Developmentally appropriate preparation and support for surgery and medical procedures
Identifying individual coping strategies for medical procedures and hospital admissions
Comfort positioning and relaxation activities
Supervision of The Zone activity space
Pre-procedural tours of the hospital for children and their families before their stay
Sibling support
Access to gaming resources and bedside activities
Special events specifically for hospitalized children and their families
Community volunteers also help create special events, arts and crafts or other projects. They are available to play a video game, read a story or simply sit at a child’s bedside to provide comfort and companionship.

Comprehensive Range of Services

UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital offers a wide array of services designed to address the diverse needs of its patients and their families. These services include:

Pediatric Palliative Care Program

The UCLA Health Pediatric Palliative Care Program is a special service designed to reduce pain and suffering and increase well-being in children with serious or life-threatening illnesses. This team includes physician pediatric palliative care specialists, nurse practitioners, social workers and chaplains. This service can be requested by your child’s primary doctor. The Pediatric Palliative Care team provides treatments and resources to help reduce pain, nausea, anxiety and other discomforts due to serious illness, as well as to help with communication between you and your child’s medical teams if needed. The team can also help with treatment decisions when needed and integrates mind-body care into all aspects of its consultations.

Family Resource Room

The family resource room is a place where you can network with other parents with similar challenges, participate in support groups or take part in educational or creative arts seminars. A volunteer librarian is available to share information on child development, medical conditions and community resources. The family resource room is located on the fifth floor, room 5236B, and has flexible hours.

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Services provided in the family resource room include:

Use of computer
Printing, faxing and copying
Watching television
Quiet time
Educational and recreational activities
Light refreshments for families of a hospitalized child
Knitting classes
Scrapbooking classes

Food Services

Patients receive meals and snacks delivered to their rooms. Please talk to your doctor or dietitian if your child has any medical or religious dietary restrictions.

To order food at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, call 310-267-9218 from your cell phone or 79218 from a hospital phone.

For family and visitors, the Dining Commons on the first floor at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and Café Santa Monica on the ground floor of the North Wing at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center offer a variety of hot meals, prepared foods, snacks and beverages. Please speak with your child’s social worker if you are struggling with food access while admitted to the hospital.

There is limited space for storing food from home in the acute-care pediatric units (3F/5W) and the PICU/PCTICU. The NICU does not have a refrigerator or freezer available to store food. If you would like to store a small amount of food, please wrap or seal the food and give it to a staff member to label and put in the unit’s refrigerator. For health and safety reasons, food left in the refrigerator for more than 72 hours will be discarded.

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Your child’s food can be heated and served under the supervision of unit personnel. Food may not be reheated more than once. If your child is on isolation, we will not be able to take the food out of the room. Please remember that your child may be on a special diet, so check with his or her nurse before giving your child any food you bring from home.

Mini fridges may be available for your child’s room. Ask your nurse if you need a mini fridge.

Heart Touch Project

The purpose of the Heart Touch Project is to provide gentle touch and massage services to children hospitalized at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center who meet medical criteria and who want this treatment. Providing regular compassionate touch to hospitalized infants, children, adolescents and young adults can provide many benefits.

Hygiene Supplies

Basic hygiene supplies are available, including toothbrushes, toothpaste, shampoo, combs, lotion and razors.

Language Services

You have the right to an interpreter during every interaction with UCLA Health staff, at no cost to you. This service is provided by in-person interpreters, video conferences or by telephone. Each hospital room has an iPad with access at any time to a video or phone interpreter.

Mindfulness Program

This practice has been shown to reduce stress, boost the immune system and promote a general sense of health and well-being. Studies have also shown that mindfulness-based interventions can reduce symptoms of acute pain, anxiety, and other issues. This approach can be used instead of, or alongside, medication prescribed by your child’s medical team. UCLA Health offers virtual mindfulness and meditation services.

At UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, a trained healthcare team is available to guide mindfulness exercises, such as visualization, body scanning, breathing exercises, and other relaxation practices. If you would like these interventions for your child, please reach out to your child life specialist, social worker, or nurse.

Music therapy

Music therapists help children feel better by allowing them to creatively express their feelings and ideas. Your child doesn’t have to sing or play an instrument to see a music therapist. They can sing or play familiar songs, record music or relax and listen to music. This service has limited availability.

NICU Support Groups and Classes

The NICU family group meets twice weekly at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center to provide information, resources and support from team members (lactation consultants, discharge planners, chaplains and others) and families of former NICU patients. Refreshments are provided. The NICU also offers a Baby Basics class. This monthly class focuses on basic baby care and information about transitioning from the hospital to home.

Paula’s PetPal Place

Paula’s PetPal Place is a service that allows children to reunite with their pets during their stay at UCLA Health.

People-Animal Connection (PAC)

Volunteer-dog teams offer companionship and warmth to you and your child. People-Animal Connection may help with physical and emotional healing by providing positive bonding dogs to individuals of all ages and backgrounds. These teams of dogs with a human parent meet UCLA Health’s strict criteria and successfully complete a behavior exam before they can come to the bedside for visits.

Psychology/Psychiatry Services

Psychologists and psychiatrists become involved in the care of your child when requested by your child’s primary medical team. Because hospitalization can be very stressful for any child, these consultants treat many emotional and developmental concerns that can complicate medical care and recovery. Consultants may also teach coping techniques to children struggling with serious illnesses, teach parenting strategies and provide medication recommendations for symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety or depression.

School Instruction

Our on-site teacher offers individualized instruction for patients during hospitalizations of any duration.

Spiritual Care

Interfaith chaplains are members of the health care team and are available to visit children and families of all faith traditions, to pray if desired, to share in faith questions, to bring scriptures or holy writings from a specific faith tradition and to help meet specific faith needs, such as communion, baptism, anointing of the sick and reconciliation. The Interfaith Meditation Room is open to all patients and visitors 24 hours daily in Room 1109 on the first floor of Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center by the main entrance.

The Tiverton Hotel

If you need a place to stay, The Tiverton Hotel has 100 rooms and is designed to meet the needs of UCLA Health families. It includes free breakfast and shuttle service to and from the hospital and UCLA campus. There's also a kitchen, a business area, a gym and a fun room.

Wireless Internet

You can use Wi-Fi all over the hospital. Visit the Information or Concierge desk to get a username and password.

Locations and Facilities

UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital is located within the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. UCLA's facilities are designed to serve the most critically ill children with sophisticated, compassionate care in an environment that is both welcoming and healing to children and their families. In total, Mattel has 131 inpatient beds, which includes 44 beds in the pediatric unit, 22 beds in the neonatal ICU, 18 beds in the pediatric ICU, and 6 beds in the pediatric cardiac ICU.

The Mattel Children’s Unit at UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica, includes a 25-bed pediatric unit and a 16-bassinet Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Each nursing unit has its own minor procedure room so young patients can undergo certain treatments away from their sleeping area to avoid associating pain or distress with their own room.

Access and Directions

The main entrance and patient drop-off area for UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital is located next to the Emergency entrance to the hospital. There are valet parking services available to patients and visitors at UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital on Westwood Plaza. When leaving, you can retrieve your vehicle from the Valet Lobby located on Level P. Patient drop-off is available at valet at the hospital entrance and at the Emergency entrance.

Specialized Programs and Recognition

UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital stands out for its specialized programs and the recognition it has garnered in various pediatric subspecialties. Ten pediatric subspecialties earned national recognition: behavioral health; cancer; cardiology and heart surgery; gastroenterology and GI surgery; diabetes and endocrinology; neonatology; nephrology; neurology and neurosurgery; orthopedics; and urology.

Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program

The UCLA Pediatric Infectious Diseases Fellowship Training Program is an ACGME approved 3-year program, dedicated to training fellows that excel clinically, are fully able to conduct successful independent research, and also act as outstanding medical educators. In addition to seeing general pediatric infectious disease conditions including Kawasaki disease, complicated pneumonia, and osteomyelitis, fellows are trained to care of highly complicated patients including those in our pediatric intensive care unit, the cardiothoracic intensive care unit, and the neonatal intensive care unit. They also develop expertise in the care of immunocompromised patients as we collaborate closely with the various transplant services to care for the pediatric recipients of stem cell, renal, heart, liver, small bowel and multi-visceral transplants as well as offering gene therapy to SCID and CGD patients.

Diverse research opportunities are available in basic and clinical sciences both at UCLA and at our global sites, and are chosen and tailored to meet the particular needs and interests of the individual fellow. Opportunities not only exist within the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, but also throughout the entire UCLA Medical Campus. By the end of training, fellows will be conversant with the scientific method of approach to clinical and fundamental biological problems. Formal lectures, mentoring, and guidance prepare trainees for the preparation of grant proposals, abstracts, and manuscripts.

Academic Health Center

As an academic health center, we offer our patients the latest technologies and access to potentially life-saving new therapies and clinical trials. And our physicians and researchers work across the University of California system to exchange knowledge with clinicians at our other academic health centers. With patient care and research in numerous specialties, UCLA Health continues to define what an academic medical center can be.

About UCLA Health

UCLA Health comprises five hospitals on two campuses: Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital, Stewart and Linda Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA, UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, and UCLA West Valley Medical Center. We also include the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. UCLA Health has more than 280 medical practices throughout Southern California. UCLA Medical Center was on the honor roll of America’s 20 best hospitals and #1 in California.

It's now easier than ever to refer your patients to services at UCLA Health. No matter where you're located, our referral team will provide you with the personalized help you and your patients require.

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