CLEVELAND -- University Hospitals Health System today announced a $10 million gift from The Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Foundation.  The Foundation has designated $7 million to support the new Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) at Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, and $3 million for further development of The Neurological Institute at University Hospitals.

"The plans that UH has outlined for the future of the hospital system in its Vision 2010 growth strategy are among the best we have ever seen," said Elisabeth Severance Prentiss Foundation trustees in making this gift. "We hope our philanthropic investment will inspire others in the community to step up and join us in supporting University Hospitals in its efforts to raise healthcare to new heights in Northeast Ohio."

The Prentiss Foundation’s gift marks a significant milestone by pushing Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital, University Hospitals’ world-renowned pediatric hospital, over the halfway mark toward its goal to raise $25.2 million to build a new state-of-the-art NICU.

"We are deeply honored by this generous gift, and we are particularly grateful to the board members of the Prentiss Foundation for their continued support," said Thomas F. Zenty III, president and CEO, University Hospitals Health System. "This leadership gift will not only help strategically propel the development and implementation of a world-class NICU at Rainbow -- a critical component of Vision 2010 -- it also supports The Neurological Institute, the first facility of its kind in Northeast Ohio."

"Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital and our medical staff have long been international leaders in neonatology -- at the leading-edge for neonatal patient care, training and research," said Fred C. Rothstein, M.D., president and CEO, University Hospitals of Cleveland. "The current NICU, however, was constructed nearly 20 years ago, and it is critical to Rainbow’s continued advancement of neonatology and neonatal intensive care that we bring our facilities in line with the next generation of pediatric medicine."

"Over the last few years, Rainbow’s NICU admissions have increased by more than 25 percent, and we have been consistently at capacity," added Avroy A. Fanaroff, M.D., Rainbow’s Chairman of Pediatrics. 
"The services and skills we offer in our NICU are vital to the Greater Cleveland community, and we must continue to provide the absolute best care possible to this remarkably fragile patient population."

The new NICU will incorporate the most-advanced technology with features that recreate the sheltered environment of the womb.  The new design will include:

--Single, private patient rooms (currently multiple patients are treated in nurseries) with acoustic and lighting features to ensure that critically ill premature infants and their families are best protected and comfortable.

--Space for parents at the bedside of every infant to reinforce their critical role in their baby’s recovery and to provide optimal conditions for mothers who have recently delivered (current conditions are cramped and do not accommodate parents who wish to sleep near their babies).

--State-of-the-art monitoring systems that instantly, but silently, alert caregivers to changes in baby?s condition.

--Specific and variable lighting that allows the illumination level in the rooms to instantly adjust as the baby’s condition changes.

-- Advanced features that allow life saving treatments, such as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) which provides heart/lung by-pass for the most critically ill newborns, to be provided without moving the patient.

--A surgical suite in the NICU to eliminate transporting critically ill newborns to current pediatric operating rooms.

The gift also supports the Neurological Institute which integrates specialists from across University Hospitals Health System to offer comprehensive care of patients with diseases affecting the nervous system.  This new approach allows for expanded research and both formal and informal sharing of best practices. It also offers a multi-disciplinary team approach to the diagnosis and treatment of nervous system disorders, such as stroke and epilepsy, brain tumors, movement disorders, and many others. 

"The Neurological Institute is just starting to move forward, and we are extremely grateful for and excited about the momentum this gift provides for our efforts, as it will specifically help us in our continued work to advance our understanding and treatment of migraine headaches," said Warren Selman, M.D., director, Neurological Institute at University Hospitals. "All of the specialists involved with the Institute are greatly pleased to be able to bring this new concept to reality at University Hospitals and offer this type of comprehensive care."