The following describes neonatology and Hurley Medical Center’s Level III NICU. For specific information regarding your baby’s health and treatment options, please contact your Hurley physician or medical professional.

The region’s only Level III Newborn Intensive Care Unit

Each year nearly 1,000 babies are born prematurely or critically ill, either at Hurley Medical Center or in the surrounding 3-county area. For the best chance of survival, these fragile lives require the expert, highly-specialized critical care available only from Hurley Medical Center’s Level III NICU. Neonatology is a division of pediatrics that specializes in the care of sick or premature newborns. If your baby is born with a serious medical condition, only the neonatologists at Hurley Medical Center have the expertise and state-of-the-art facilities to give your baby the highest level of life-saving care.

The highest level of expertise, the most advanced technology, and a dedicated and caring staff

Being designated a Level III NICU facility means that our entire NICU staff – neonatologists, perinatologists (specialists in high-risk pregnancies), NICU nurses, nurse practitioners, and respiratory therapy nurse specialists – have the state-of-the-art knowledge and technology needed to care for critically ill and premature newborns.

Life-saving transport capabilities

We not only care for the infants born here at Hurley Medical Center but also for ones born at other hospitals who become very sick. If one of these infants needs critical care, transporting him/her to Hurley is particularly challenging. To make the trip as medically safe as possible, our transport team—a neonatologist, NICU nurse, nurse practitioner, and respiratory therapist—travels to the transferring hospital, stabilizes the baby, and transports him/her here to Hurley’s NICU.

A team of experts

One of the main reasons Hurley’s Level III NICU is so successful in caring for critically ill babies is our team approach:

• board-certified neonatologists lead a highly-skilled medical team that includes nurses, respiratory therapists, nutritionists, developmental specialists, speech and physical therapists, and many others
• social workers help families deal with the stressful emotions and other concerns of having a baby in Hurley’s Level III NICU
• lactation consultants assist moms with the challenges of breastfeeding a very sick or premature infant
• Hurley’s Level III NICU transport team is available 24/7 to stabilize and transport sick newborn infants throughout the region
• Hurley perinatologists in our Maternal Fetal Medicine Department deliver highly specialized care to both mother and fetus—throughout a high-risk pregnancy and delivery—all the way to Hurley’s Level III NICU

A state-of-the-art unit

Newly renovated with 44 beds in three pods, Hurley Medical Center’s Level III NICU is designed for privacy while delivering the highest level of critical care. The lighting is low and can be adjusted in each room if a procedure is required. All the technology we need to care for a very ill or preterm baby is right by each isolette (the latest models of giraffe isolettes), as well as the most advanced nitric oxide technology (used for respiratory ventilation).

Our NICU nurses

It takes a special nurse to take care of critical babies through very turbulent times, and also to support the baby’s family during these times. Our Level III NICU nurses go out of their way to support parents and listen to their concerns, because these parents have no control over what their child is going through. We often hear how incredibly compassionate and caring our NICU nurses are, over and above what’s required—this is Hurley at its best.