For Health Care Providers

The benefit to care providers who refer children and families to Noah’s Children is the satisfaction of knowing that the best possible care will be provided at the most difficult period in a family’s life by a team of highly skilled professionals. 

Services & Benefits

Noah’s Children serves infants, children and adolescents who have been diagnosed with chronic or life-threatening illnesses. We also work with parents who learn their unborn child may be born with a life-threatening condition.
Studies consistently show that palliative care reduces distressing symptoms, improves communication, improves patient satisfaction and reduces costs. This type of compassionate, comprehensive care requires the focus and expertise of an interdisciplinary team like Noah’s Children, the only program in Central Virginia that provides this kind of service, and one of the first in the nation.

For children who wish to be treated at home, the interdisciplinary team brings its clinical expertise together in planning and carrying out an effective, safe and comfort-driven plan of care. Noah’s Children will act as the care coordinator, working with children and families at any point from the initial diagnosis and continuing throughout the illness. The primary care physician (PCP) is a member of our team, and our staff serves as the eyes and ears in the home for the physician. If desired, Noah’s Children also is available to take over complete care of the child at any time.
Some of the reasons for referring patients to Noah’s Children include

• A deteriorating medical condition
• A life-threatening or life-limiting illness
• Unacceptable levels of pain or other symptom distress
• Assistance with complex decision-making and determination of goals by the care team, patient or family
• Uncontrolled psychosocial or spiritual issues
• A newborn at the threshold of viability
• A newborn not responding to intensive care intervention and deteriorating despite all appropriate efforts
• A fetus or newborn with a known lethal congenital anomaly
• Education for child and family about the underlying disease process and prognosis
• Assistance for dying patients and their families in preparing for and managing the actively dying phase of a child’s journey.

Over the years our team has worked with children facing a variety of diseases, including:

• Adrenoleukodystrophy
• Alper’s Disease
• Batten's Disease
• Biliary Atresia
• Cerebral Palsy (severe)
• Colon Cancer
• Complex Cardiac Lesion (inoperable)
• Dyshydrosis Congenital
• Gangliosidosis
• Immunodeficiency Mitochondrial Encephalomyopathy
• Leigh’s Syndrome
• Leukemia
• Lissencephaly
• Muscular Dystrophy
• Malignant Neoplasm of the Brain
• Neuroblastoma
• Neurodegenerative Diseases (non specific)
• Primitive Neuroectodermal Tumor
• Trisomy 13
• Trisomy 18
• Wilms Tumor

Eligibility & Referrals

A child’s primary physician must provide written orders for the services provided by Noah’s Children. Children are referred by pediatricians, specialists, intensive care units and health departments from all three major health care networks in Central Virginia, including HCA, Virginia Commonwealth University and Bon Secours. Specialists other than pediatricians who have referred to Noah’s Children include neonatologists, intensivists, cardiologists, oncologists, pulmonologists, neurologists, perinatologists, gastroenterologists, neurosurgeons and transplant surgeons.
We encourage pediatricians, specialists or family members to contact us as soon as a child is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Once the referral is made, Noah’s Children follows up with the physician for clinical information and to clarify the child's needs. An initial home visit is set up, and the family is then given the option of enrolling. If the family chooses to do so, we conduct an assessment in the following areas nursing, spiritual care and social work.

Services are provided regardless of race, religion, disability or financial resources. Any child needing hospice services who meets the eligibility requirements will not be denied care regardless of their ability to pay.
To refer a patient to Noah’s Children, please call (804) 213-0360.

Relevant Articles and Web Sites for Health Care Providers

• American Academy of Pediatrics, Policy Statement on Palliative care for Children www.aapolicy.aapublications.org/cgi/content/full/pediatrics
• Americans for Better Care of the Dying
  www.abcd-caring.org
• Association for Children with Life-Threatening or Terminal Conditions and Their Families (ACT);
  www.act.org.uk
• Children’s Hospice International;
  www.chionline.org
• Children’s International Project on Palliative/Hospice Services;
  www.nhpco.org
• End-of-Life Care for Children
  www.childendoflifecare.org
• End-of-Life Physician Education Resource Center
  www.eperc.mcw.edu
• The Footprints Program
  www.footprintsatglennon.org
• George Mark Children’s House
  www.georgemark.org
• Growth House
  www.growthhouse.org
• Hospice Foundation of America
  www.hospicefoundation.org
• Ian Anderson Continuing Education Program in End-of-Life Care
  www.cme.utoronto.ca/endoflife/
• Initiative for Pediatric Palliative Care
  www.ippcweb.org
• Innovations in End-of-Life Care
  www.edc.org/lastacts
• National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
  www.nap.edu “When Children Die Improving Palliative and End-of-Life Care for Children and Their Families”
• National Alliance for Children with Life-Threatening Conditions
  www.nacwltc.org/
• National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization
  www.nhpco.org
• Project on Death in America
  www.soros.org
• Promoting Excellence in End of Life Care
  www.promotingexcellence.org/
• Supportive Care Coalition
  www.supportivecarecoalition.org