Children's Mercy Hospitals and Clinics has a general medical unit called "5 Sutherland," with specialties including:

• Nephrology, including renal failure and renal transplant
• Neurology
• Rehabilitation

Common diagnoses include

• Brain injury
• Spinal cord injury
• Acute and chronic renal failure
• Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (HUS)
• Nephrotic syndrome
• Renal transplant
• Any general medical diagnoses

Our services and treatments include

• Epilepsy monitoring unit
• Peritoneal dialysis
• Inpatient rehabilitation

We are a 21-bed unit configured in a "pod" layout to reduce noise and increase nurse visibility. All patient rooms are private. The unit is shaped like a three-leaf clover with seven beds in each leaf.

Each pod has its own medication, nutrition, storage, linen and dirty utility room, as well as a nurses' station for the staff nurses and care assistants working at that pod.

Our unit features

• An occupational and physical therapy gym that allows rehab patients to have therapies at the unit. This provides better flow to their daily routine and facilitates ease of communication between health care personnel involved in the child's care.
• Two rooms designed to accommodate video epilepsy monitoring.

Patients range in age from neonates to 22 years. We occasionally treat young adults. We also provide nursing care for healthy adults who donate a kidney to one of our pediatric patients.

We work with the "Purple Team," which is one of our general medical teams composed of residents and attending physicians. We also work with our subspecialty pediatric medical teams: neurology, rehab and nephrology.