Sacred Heart Children's Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) has been named a Center of Excellence for Neonatal Services by OptumHealth Care Solutions, a subsidiary of insurance carrier United Healthcare.

Sacred Heart's NICU was awarded this designation for demonstrating extraordinary clinical proficiency in the care of newborns. It was based on several quality indicators, including program experience, clinical outcomes, pediatric surgical capabilities and the hospital's ability to demonstrate a commitment to ongoing clinical quality initiatives.

OptumHealth is developing Centers of Excellence networks for neonatal care across the U.S. and has successfully developed similar networks for a variety of specialties, including transplants, cancer, infertility and congenital heart disease. OptumHealth's goal in awarding these designations is to ensure that patients and their case managers choose Centers of Excellence, considered to be the gold standard in complex health care.

Sacred Heart Children's Hospital provides Northwest Florida's only Level III neonatal intensive care unit and is one of only 11 hospitals in Florida designated as a Regional Perinatal Intensive Care Center. The NICU is a 55-bed unit offering specialized care of premature and critically ill newborns.

For more information, call (850) 416-7000 or visit our website at http://www.sacred-heart.org/.

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