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The Division of Infectious Diseases at Children's Mercy provides inpatient and outpatient care for newborns to young adults. Our experts in infectious diseases provide compassionate care, excellence in teaching, and investigations into clinical and laboratory research. 

Infectious Diseases Programs


We have specialized clinics for international adoptions, travel medicine, and immunocompromising conditions. Our Antimicrobial Stewardship Program is one of the first pediatric programs in the country. We are the site for the IMPAACT and NVSN studies.

Outpatient management and inpatient diagnostic evaluation and management is available at Children's Mercy Adele Hall Campus and Children's Mercy Hospital Kansas. This includes consultation service for both primary infectious diseases and immunocompromised host consultation services.

For questions regarding vaccinations, outbreaks and alerts, infection control, diagnostic testing and laboratory interpretation please call (816) 234-3061.

Clinical Services

Our International Adoption Clinic provides pre- and post-adoption services to families adopting children from abroad. It is intended to augment the care provided by the child's primary health care provider. Services include both initial evaluations and initiation of treatment for infections.

When children or teens and their parents are planning to travel outside the country, visit the only travel clinic in the Kansas City region exclusively dedicated to their needs.

Our health care providers offer expert evaluation and management of children with special immune problems, such as HIV infection and primary immune deficiencies.

The pediatric specialists in the Division of Infectious Diseases are available for outpatient consultation upon request for children with a variety of known or suspected infections.

Our physicians typically follow up on a weekly basis with children who receive intravenous antibiotics at home.

Conditions

  • Fever

  • Chronic or recurrent infections

  • Serious systemic infections

  • Infections in the immunocompromised host

  • Foreign body-related infections

  • Post operative and hospital-acquired infections

  • Pneumonia

  • HIV infection

  • Meningitis

  • Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection

  • Skin and soft tissue infections

  • Lymphadenitis/lymphadenopathy

  • Musculoskeletal infections

  • Tick-borne infections

  • Kawasaki disease

  • Tuberculosis

  • Intra-abdominal infection

  • Cat Scratch Disease

  • Gastrointestinal infection

  • Recurrent MRSA skin infection

Brooke's Book  Despair to Hope: Disease Prevention Through Vaccines

Brooke's Book

Despair to Hope: Disease Prevention Through Vaccines
by Mary Anne Jackson, MD, and Christopher Harrison, MD


Synopsis: Brooke was a seemingly healthy 28-year-old woman whose life was tragically cut short when she contracted meningococcal serogroup B disease. A vaccine protective against meningococcus serogroup B only became available in mid-2015 and may now be considered in healthy adolescents. It is approved for use in high-risk adolescents and adults and should soon be approved for younger children. Brooke's Dad was inspired to share her story, and we have included additional stories from other families regarding vaccine-preventable diseases.

This book tells the stories of individual children, teenagers, adults and families who experienced vaccine-preventable infections or other diseases that vaccines have not yet eliminated. Brooke’s Book celebrates successes of the past as we look to the future for more breakthroughs in vaccines. It highlights potential advances that will be made possible from ongoing scientific discovery and innovation in the field of vaccine research, many of them happening at Children’s Mercy.

Children’s Mercy offers this book to the community knowing parents need as much good information about vaccines as possible to make it easier for them to make the decision to immunize their children.

Brooke’s Book would not be possible without the generous donation of time and talent from Sarah Baum (copy development) and Laura Fitzgibbons (photography).

Stories

Time saves lives: Emersyn’s story

When every minute counts, a great partnership matters.

Baby Emersyn’s temperature spikes on a routine Saturday morning, prompting her community pediatrician to refer her straight to the Emergency Department at Children’s Mercy Hospital Kansas. Using cutting-edge technology, the Infectious Diseases team rapidly diagnoses Emersyn with E. coli meningitis, which if not caught early, can have a devastating outcome.

The Link, a newsletter for infectious disease health care providers

The Link

The Link is a monthly newsletter that provides education to an audience of local, regional and national pediatric providers, on subjects related to current medical trends, developments in best practices and analysis of hot topics.

The free, award-winning publication is authored by Children's Mercy pediatric specialists, edited by Mary Anne Jackson, MD, and Angela Myers, MD, MPH, from the Division of Infectious Diseases, and produced by the Communications and Marketing Department.

You'll receive updates on:

  • Medical news and trends

  • Reviews of pediatric bioethics cases

  • Discussion on challenging diagnoses 

Subscribe to The Link