Annual Reports
Nearly 90 years of being the destination for pediatric healthcare.
For nearly 90 years, Dolly Parton Children's Hospital has been providing state-of-the-art pediatric care in East Tennessee. Children's Hospital serves children from colds to cancer with 35 subspecialties to meet the needs of infants, children and teens. Personalized quality care for each child and family in the region and beyond is what sets our healthcare system apart from other healthcare networks.
Each year, Dolly Parton Children's Hospital presents a report to the community of its efforts and success of the previous year and its plans for the future.
Facts About Our Hospital
Dolly Parton Children's Hospital has served the children and teens in Knoxville and East Tennessee since 1937.
- Children's Hospital is home to nearly 2,000 full and part-time staff supporting hospital operations. We are East Tennessee's 25th largest employer.
- Children's Hospital has 152 licensed inpatient beds; 60 level III neonatal intensive care, 13 support pediatric intensive care and 79 beds support a variety of medical/surgical conditions.
- TennCare is our most significant insurance program, representing 65 percent of our funding annually.
- We have partnered with Knox County's adult facilities to provide expert on-site neonatal nurses supporting newborn deliveries. We provide on-site neonatal nurses supporting newborn deliveries with special trained clinicians at Parkwest staffed 24/7 and our neonatal transport team attends high risk deliveries at Fort Sanders Regional. We collaborate to facilitate, develop, coordinate and conduct workshops and meetings to provide consultation and education to healthcare professionals and community organizations relative to neonatal care.
We provide physician, nursing and management services for patients requiring pediatric intensive care in designated beds at UT Medical Center otherwise too unstable to be transferred to ETCH until such time they become stable for transport or discharge.
- We work closely with all hospitals in our region to ensure they are prepared to care for children by providing education and, when appropriate, pediatric supplies.
- Children's Hospital has neonatal and pediatric transport programs available 24 hours a day to work with hospitals confronted with children whose needs exceed their capability or expertise.
- Our hospital has led statewide efforts to improve the quality of care by reducing system-wide central line associated blood stream infections (CLABSI) and pressure injuries caused from medical devices, and is currently involved in a consortium of hospitals through the Tennessee Initiative for Perinatal Care (TIPQC) to improve care to babies born dependent on drugs (a condition called NAS, or Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome), as well as to improve nutrition in very low birth weight infants. The NICU Tiny Baby Taskforce is also working to incorporate the newest evidence-based research into the care they provide to micro-preemies as they continue to reduce the incidence of brain bleeds in these tiny infants.
- Children's Hospital has one of the largest cochlear ear implant programs.
