LEXINGTON Five years ago, Shriners Children’s Lexington opened a brand new, state-of-the-art medical center across from the UK Healthcare campus. It had been more than a decade in the making.
Today, the pediatric outpatient surgical and rehabilitation center serves over 16,000 patients a year. The medical center is one of 20 Shriners Children’s facilities in the U.S. providing care for orthopedic conditions ranging from the rare to the routine.
Some of the pediatric specialties include clubfoot and other foot disorders, infantile and adolescent hip disorders, hand and upper-extremity disorders, limb deficiencies and amputations, rheumatology, sports injuries, fractures, scoliosis and other spinal deformities, and orthopedic conditions related to cerebral palsy, spina bifida, osteogenesis imperfecta, and more.
Shriners Children’s provides care for children 18 and younger regardless of the families’ ability to pay. The healthcare system accepts insurance but will provide care for children with no insurance.
“In a complicated healthcare landscape, we’re able to provide care to thousands of children each year regardless of their ability to pay,” says Tony Lewgood, administrator for the Lexington medical center. “That allows us to get to the heart of healthcare, providing exceptional care to those who need it, thanks to our endowment and the generosity of our donors.
Lewgood says providers and families need to know that the Lexington medical center cares for a variety of patients. “It’s a long-held misconception that we only treat children with complex conditions, or only those without insurance,” Lewgood says. “That is not the case. While we are fully capable of handling more complex cases, we’re here to help every child with an orthopedic need, with some of the best physicians in the country.”
National Acclaim
For two consecutive years, Shriners Children’s Lexington, in partnership with UK Healthcare’s Kentucky Children’s Hospital (KCH), has been named among the Top 50 Best Hospitals for Pediatric Orthopedics by U.S. News and World Report.
The physicians who practice at the Shriners medical center also practice at UK Healthcare, and many are professors at the UK College of Medicine. Consulting physicians from UK Healthcare also serve Shriners patients with anesthesia, rheumatology, sports medicine, and plastic surgery.
“While we have a strong partnership with UK Healthcare, we are still separate entities,” Lewgood says. “The close proximity of Shriners and the KCH brings together Shriners’ pediatric orthopedic expertise and KCH’s specialty and subspecialty care for children with complex conditions. It’s a partnership that strengthens our mission of providing the most amazing care anywhere.”
Shriners Children’s Lexington has served children and families in five states for over 90 years. The first Lexington Shriners hospital opened on Richmond Road in 1926 with a newer hospital built nearby in the 1980s. The newest medical center opened in 2017.
The 110,000 square-foot medical center features two surgical suites, six pre- and post-surgery rooms and a post-anesthesia care unit, a motion analysis laboratory, 20 patient exam rooms in an outpatient clinic, four infusion rooms, a radiology department that provides traditional and low-dose imaging, a rehabilitation gym and treatment rooms for physical and occupational therapy, an observation playground, a research department, and a custom prosthetics and orthotics department.
More information about Shriners Children’s Lexington is at ShrinersLexington.org and 859.266.2101. For appointments, call 859.268.5675.