Current Foundation Projects

The Jackson L. Graves Foundation funds numerous projects. Currently, it is partnering with the Arkansas Children's Hospital to:

• Provide toys, books, clothes, toiletries and other items for infants and toddlers, as well as their families.

• Funding for research into recurring conditions that cause long term hospital stays for infants.

• Funding of specialized training for nursing care of long term infant patients.

• Purchase of special equipment needed for long term NICU patients and families.

• Creation of resource library for parents and families of hospitalized infants.

The Jackson L. Graves Foundation is also helping to fund a longer term project at the Arkansas Children's Hospital. This project is for the dedication of space and staffing for a "Transitional Care Unit" for long-term, critically ill infants in the neonatal intensive care unit at the hospital.

Specifically, the plan is to create an updated model of care to provide individualized, family-centered care, including:

• Specialized care for infants with complex conditions, such as babies with chronic lung disease, with longer term technology needs (oxygen, feeding tubes, etc.), and with complex surgical conditions.

• Accounting for prolonged need for family accommodations and care, including creation of a dedicated area for these babies, and ultimately attaining the goal of individual rooms for each of these babies.

• Staffing of primary and secondary care nurses assigned to each baby to create stability/familiarity in care of each infant.

• Creating a Family Centered Care Program involving graduate parents, local churches as partners, and special events.

The initial plans for the criteria for admitting an infant to this special area is as follows:

• Complex, chronically ill infants, prioritizing those older than 60 days of age. This will include, but is not limited to, babies with the following diagnoses, in order of decreasing priority:

• Continued ventilator dependence and other chronic lung disorders of infancy, especially when complicated by pulmonary hypertension

• Surgically repaired necrotizing entercolitis

• Shunt-dependent hydrocephalus complicated by other neonatal problems, including feeding/swallowing dysfunctions

• Genetic syndromes/disorders complicated by other neonatal problems, including feeding/swallowing dysfunctions

• Complex surgical intervention needs. This will include, but is not limited to, babies with the following diagnoses:

• Congenital diaphragmatic hernia

• Abdominal wall defects (omphalocele, gastroschesis, etc.)

• Esophageal atresia/tracheoesophageal fistula

Quick facts about Arkansas Children's Hospital NICU:

• 840 babies were transferred to Arkansas Children's NICU in 2004

• 50 of the babies were from Northwest Arkansas (an average of 4 per month, and 6% of the total)

• Average census in the unit is 50, but unit can hold as many as 80 babies

• 5-10 of the babies in the unit at any one time have complex conditions and surgical needs that would fit the criteria of the proposed Transitional Care Unit

• Arkansas Children's NICU survival rate is 96 percent