ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. — Baptist Health Foundation Hardin leaders were recently joined by Kosair Charities leaders, including President and CEO Barry Dunn, to announce that the foundation was awarded a $150,000 grant. The Kosair Charities gift will expand pediatric care, education, and the region’s only Level II neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at Baptist Health Hardin.
The grant announcement brings Kosair Charities’ total investment in Baptist Health Foundation Hardin since 2016 to $1,071,231. As part of the announcement, hospital leaders from the Emergency Department and the NICU provided updates about how equipment funded helped patients and their families over the years. The group also toured both units to see how the grants help kids from central Kentucky.
The Foundation will use the recent gift to purchase an ultrasound machine for the Emergency Department, allowing clinicians to perform immediate bedside scans for life-threatening conditions related to pediatric trauma. This investment will support the hospital’s long-term efforts to achieve this certification. The National Pediatric Readiness Project is a multi-phase quality improvement initiative designed to ensure all U.S. emergency departments have the essential guidelines and resources in place to provide effective emergency care to children. Hospitals with high emergency department readiness scores demonstrate a four-fold lower rate of mortality for children with critical illness than those with lower readiness scores.
The grant will also fund a proposed education program for elementary schools with the goal of providing maltreatment prevention strategies for students. Baptist Health Hardin leaders hope to create an abuse prevention program for two area elementary schools by this fall.
In addition, grant funding will go toward purchasing equipment to care for fragile and critically ill infants in the hospital’s NICU. In 2021, 1,417 babies were born at Baptist Health Hardin, ranking the hospital ninth in the state among delivering hospitals. In 2021, 142 babies born at Baptist Health Hardin required NICU care. Equipment funded includes:
- A Sonosite ultrasound machine will allow staff to decrease the number of sticks to establish peripheral vein access.
- An additional infant scale to use for COVID-19-positive mothers.
- A NeoLight to assist with early detection of jaundice.
- Nursing pillows to help mothers breastfeed.
Finally, Baptist Health Hardin’s Pediatric Therapy Center team requested help to purchase a stove with a stovetop and oven and electrical work to support the stove, to help develop baking and cooking skills among pediatric patients to better prepare them for independence as they transition into adulthood.
Serving Kentucky and southern Indiana, Kosair Charities seeks to enhance the health and well-being of children by delivering financial support for healthcare, research, education, social services, and child advocacy.
Locally, the Riasok Shrine Club and the Knights of Columbus Council No. 1455 support Kosair Charities by hosting the annual Brotherhood Banquet in February.
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