Ronald McDonald House Charities of Oklahoma City, Inc

PROJECT PURPOSE

Our Ronald McDonald House program plays a unique role in enabling Family-Centered Care by providing respite services and a community of support for families of children being treated at Oklahoma Children?s Hospital. This project for a 36 bedroom Ronald McDonald House in Northwest Oklahoma City will serve high risk expectant mothers seeking treatment from The Perinatal Center/Mercy Hospital, the high volume of families scheduling pediatric surgeries with Integris Health and the long hospital stays for families of children with complex respiratory and traumatic brain injury treatment plans at Bethany Children?s Health Center. The project addresses the previously unmet service gap for these vulnerable patient populations saving Oklahoma families an estimated $1.1M annually in temporary living expenses. It is revenue generating in that it reduces dependence on SoonerCare funding by an estimated $613,000 yearly for escort meals/lodging. Breakeven on the $4M requested investment is 6.5 years and would allow us to start construction earlier thereby serving more families sooner. Including the land value, ARPA funding of $4M represents 28.5% of the project cost.

EVIDENCE

Family-Centered Care is a model of care for children, wherein the patient and his/her family members are fully involved ? in partnership with the healthcare team ? to make informed decisions about the medical care and support services the child and family receive. Family-Centered Care improves the quality, psychological well-being, clinical outcomes and the overall patient and family experience. The accommodation and support services RMHC provides to families of hospitalized children are not only beneficial; they are essential to high-quality and effective health care. Please refer to the position paper uploaded with this application for relevant research and citations.

POPULATION DESCRIPTION

Research shows that patients whose families stayed at the Ronald McDonald House are the sickest, traveled the farthest distances, and spent the longest time in the hospital. More than 40% of the children currently served by our existing Ronald McDonald House program are babies in the neonatal ICU at Oklahoma Children?s Hospital, the state?s only Level IV neonatal ICU. Another 25% are patients in the cardiovascular ICU. Families served come from across Oklahoma. On average a family checks into the Ronald McDonald House every 10 hours and 54 minutes. In 2021, the average length of stay was 18 days and the longest stay was 199 days. Families with SoonerCare eligible children represented 66% of families served. Proximity, lodging, and a reduced financial burden are important to families of hospitalized children. Our programs offer lodging, meals and necessities of daily living - all provided at no cost to families. As a result of the pandemic, families are worse off financially and even less able to absorb unplanned temporary living expenses or risk lost wages to care for a seriously ill or injured child.

PERFORMANCE MEASURING

Most of the performance measures and statistics will be generated by our electronic guest family records system. This would include the number of children and families served, nights of stay, geographic representation, ethnicity and other socio-economic data including SoonerCare eligibility. The project construction timeline and budget will be tracked using a project management tool and our accounting system. Metrics and milestones will be monitored by management as well as our local board of directors and will be reported as requested under the terms of the award to the legislature and governor.

ONGOING INVESTMENT AMOUNT

$

ONGOING INVESTMENT DESCRIPTION

None

ONGOING INVESTMENT REQUIRED

One-time project will not need continued funding