Patient Care

The NICU at the new Los Angeles General Medical Center has 39 licensed beds and the faculty and hospital staff care for neonates with a variety of disease complexity and severity ranging from very high-risk, often extremely premature, critically ill neonates born at the Los Angeles General Medical Center Medical Center to less premature and sick infants requiring care during the immediate transitional period and beyond. Advanced modes of invasive ventilation as well as non-invasive ventilation, inhaled nitric oxide therapy, functional echocardiograms, fetal and neonatal cardiology services,  pediatric neurology consult with, video EEG monitoring capabilities, sub-specialty services to care for infants born to mothers with HIV and neonatal palliative care  are among the services readily available at Los Angeles General Medical Center NICU. In addition, the unit accepts critically ill patients transferred in from different NICU’s from the Los Angeles metropolitan region and the medical center’s emergency room who benefit from the highly specialized and developmentally oriented patient care provided in the NICU at Los Angeles General Medical Center. The Los Angeles General Medical Center NICU also offers highly specialized neonatal care including treatment of surgical conditions, therapeutic whole body hypothermia for neonates with born birth depression and hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy and a CCS-accredited comprehensive high-risk neonatal follow-up service located at the Los Angeles General Medical Center. All patient information is entered on a computerized data entry system also utilizing an automatic laboratory interface. The Neonatal Respiratory Therapy Department is directed by Dr. Rangasamy Ramanathan. Neonatal transport team with NRP- and STABLE-certified NICU staff transports patients from referring hospitals in the region for advanced levels of care. Under the direct supervision of the full time faculty, fellows and NNPs along with pediatric residents provide medical care at Los Angeles General Medical Center NICU.   Pulmonary function laboratory is directed by Dr. Manuel Durand, whose special interests include neonatal pulmonology and chronic lung disease.