Hospital Admissions Courtesy Service is not for Everyone. Mission Pediatrics doctors take care of our established patients and see newborn babies at certain hospitals. We at Mission Pediatrics believe full-service care is important, so we also provide medical advice as a courtesy to our established patients 24 hours a day seven days per week only for those patients who are physically in California or California residents. See our website for hospital affiliations where we see patients.
Many hospitals have basic pediatric floors and neonatal intensive care units; although, a disturbing trend in California to close pediatric units is something we are seeing these days, and if your community hospital has closed its pediatric unit, we encourage you to contact your health plan and your local representative to share your concerns. None of the community hospitals where we work have pediatric intensive care units at the time of this publication. Sometimes pediatric sub-specialists are available at these hospitals depending on your insurance plan.
If you believe your child is experiencing a life-threatening medical or psychological emergency, please immediately call 911 and or go to the closest emergency room –do not sit at home waiting for someone from our office to call back. If you are unsure if the matter is an emergency, please verify with our on-call doctor or provider through our 24-hour courtesy advice line or consider viewing our online patient teaching resources to assist in focusing your questions.
Direct admissions are occasionally provided from the clinic to bypass the emergency room depending on hospital policy; however, urgent emergencies are directed to the emergency room first to determine the severity and quality of care needed. Sometimes, our patients have to be transferred or are directed to different hospitals based on the needs they have and the resources of those hospitals, and sometimes these are hospitals where our physicians do not work.
The closest hospitals with pediatric intensive care units (PICU) near our offices are Riverside University Health System and Loma Linda University Medical Center. San Bernardino Community Hospital also has a PICU.