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Our Treatment Approach

A Team-oriented Treatment Approach Unique to Your Child

Your child’s team of physicians and specialists will be created to suit their individualized care needs. Designing this personalized plan is important to us because we believe that your child deserves a care plan as unique and special as they are.

What You Can Expect

Before Your Visit

Prior to your initial visit, you will be asked to provide us with your child’s medical records and any insurance information. For details on what is required, please visit our Patient Information page.

During Your Visit

You’ll typically begin with a visit to our clinic. Here, we will evaluate your child and work with you to design a customized treatment plan.

After Your Visit

Following the clinical evaluation and care plan development, you and your child will be introduced to their individualized team of specialists. Depending on the plan, your team may include social workers, registered nurses, child life specialists, dieticians, occupational therapists, physical therapists and therapeutic recreation consultants. Procedures or follow-up appointments will be booked with members from your child’s team of specialists according to their care plan.

Our Commitment to You

We are committed to ensuring your child thrives at home, school and in their community. This includes providing your family with the highest quality of care, access to our in-house clinical services, traditional inpatient services and any other professional support services related to your child’s treatment plan.

Pediatric Specialty Care at Shriners Children's Salt Lake City

Shriners Children’s Salt Lake City offers specialized care for a wide range of pediatric orthopedic conditions, including rare diseases and syndromes. Our orthopedics department is consistently recognized as a leader in pediatric orthopedic care. Our other specialties include fracture care, pediatric orthotics and prosthetics, scoliosis and spine care and plastic and reconstructive surgery.

Fracture Care

If your child has experienced a fracture or sports-related injury, our team of specialists can provide X-rays, casting, splinting and re-alignment, surgery, follow-up assessments and rehabilitation.

Fracture care is provided to children and families on a referral basis. So, if your child has a fracture or sports injury, they should first be seen by a physician, urgent care center or an emergency room doctor. The physician can then arrange an appointment through our referral process.

Please note that our medical center does not offer emergency room or urgent care services for open fractures or injuries that are life or limb-threatening.

Orthopedic Care

Our orthopedic department includes world-renowned specialists in pediatric orthopedics, including physicians, surgeons and acclaimed clinical researchers. Our team is highly specialized in a wide variety of orthopedic conditions, including limb-length discrepancy, spine conditions, hip disorders and a range of neuromuscular conditions.

If your child has an orthopedic condition, Shriners Children's Salt Lake City is an exceptional facility to consider for their treatment. Our highly-qualified staff will work with you to develop a plan that covers all aspects of their care. Depending on the complexity of your child's condition, their care plan can include a variety of treatments, surgery, rehabilitation and psychological support.

Pediatric Orthotic and Prosthetic Services

The Pediatric Orthotic and Prosthetic Services (POPS) team is devoted to designing braces, prosthetic arms and legs, and adaptive devices that give children the ability to pursue their dreams.

When you and your child visit our POPS team, it is more than measurements and mechanics. It is about your child sharing their hopes and dreams and providing our team with information specific to them. These personalized details about your child's activities and lifestyle allow our technicians to return to the lab and design a perfect fit just for them.

Plastic Surgery and Reconstructive Surgery

Our specialists perform plastic and reconstructive surgery for scars (including burn scars), isolated cleft lip repair, ear reconstruction and a variety of other procedures.

If your child requires plastic or reconstructive surgery for their condition, our specialists will work with you to develop an individualized plan that focuses on providing them with the best outcome possible.

Scoliosis and Spine Care

Our team of pediatric orthopedic specialists provide treatment for a variety of spinal conditions including scoliosis. Our individualized treatment plans include some of the most advanced and innovative techniques in surgical and non-surgical spine care available.

If your child has scoliosis or a spine condition, our team of specialists will work with you to develop a plan that covers all aspects of their care, including surgery, rehabilitation, treatment and psychological support.

Wheelchair, Seating and Mobility program

Shriners Children's Salt Lake City Wheelchair, Seating and Mobility program includes an in-house custom seating clinic. Our highly skilled staff of pediatric physical therapists and technicians collaborate to provide customized wheelchair services for our patients.

After your child has been assessed by one of our orthopedic physicians, you may choose to receive services at our wheelchair and seating department. As part of the customization process, we use high-tech tools such as seat simulation services and extensive pressure mapping, as well as innovative and hands-on adjustments to ensure just the right fit. We will work with your family to ensure that your child's device is optimized in a way that supports them in reaching their potential.

Shriners Hospitals for Children - Salt Lake City

Meet some of our healthcare heroes in this six minute virtual tour of Shriners Hospitals for Children— Salt Lake City!
View Transcript

Theresa Hennessey:

Well, Shriners Hospitals for Children in Salt Lake City really has a amazing history in pediatric orthopedics.

Kevin Martin:

We are a pediatric orthopedic specialty hospital, serving children from 18 years of age and younger who have orthopedic needs.

Theresa Hennessey:

We have a tradition of taking care of children here and have attracted the most difficult cases.

Kristen Carroll:

It is our honor to take care of children from complex to simple to in-between problems in orthopedics and involve multi-specialty care for them that involves not only expert medical care, but therapy care, [inaudible 00:00:44] seeding care, orthotics, and prosthetics care.

Theresa Hennessey:

Because we have so much experience and because we treat so many patients with really rare conditions, we can offer so many more options and offer families and children hope.

Gail McGuill:

Our patients and families tell us that they have a wonderful experience when they come to Shriners Hospital in Salt Lake City.

Kevin Martin:

We provide multi-specialty clinics where patients can come and see actually several different physicians during one appointment.

Theresa Hennessey:

If you come in and you need a brace, or you need a thesis or you need surgery, I can talk to the family, the nurses talk to the families about what to expect in scheduling surgery. I can call my orthotics guy and say, "Come over here, look at this with me." We go over it together. We figure out what's not working or what we want to do. It's all right here in the same building and we all talk to each other every day. We lunch together. We are truly a team that is focused on the child.

Gail McGuill:

The entire team works really well together to get that optimum care for the child so that they have the best outcome that they can have.

Kristen Carroll:

We have an exceptional wheelchair and seating department here. People come from all over the Intermountain West, and frankly all over the country. Perhaps the most wonderful thing about our seating department is the fact that if somebody outgrows a wheelchair, they bring it back. We refurbish that wheelchair and hopefully give it to the next kid. It really creates a community feel amongst not only our seating department but our seating patients, which is the most important thing.

Theresa Hennessey:

One of the really exciting things we have here is what we call the EOS machine. The EOS machine is kind of like a phone booth, but you stand in and an x-ray is taken. It's an x-ray that gives us more information than any other series of x-rays we can take in one shot. It does it with half the radiation and in some cases up to 90% less radiation and still gives us more information than we could get before. It's on the forefront of technology and what we do in pediatric orthopedics.

Kristen Carroll:

Our prosthetic orthotics department is probably our most fun department here. They are a wonderful group of people who will do anything to make sure that the orthotics fit comfortably on our children, and that the prosthetics are state-of-the-art and exactly what the child needs. I think one thing that we do that's very unique is if we operate on a child's foot, often the prosthetic orthotics department will come into the operating room, mold that child for their new orthotic. Then when that cast comes off four to six weeks later, that orthotic is ready to roll. We don't have an interim step where that kid has to wait two to three weeks to start their therapy. We're able to start it right away.

Our therapy department is very rich here. We have physical therapy, we have occupational therapy and we have speech therapy as well that helps us not only with children with speech issues but also with swallowing issues. Therapists use the recommendations from the gait lab, as well as from the clinic and the operating room to help make sure that every child reaches their full potential.

Bruce MacWilliams:

The Shriners Hospitals for Salt Lake City Movement Analysis Laboratory is one of just currently nine accredited laboratories in the United States.

Kristen Carroll:

Not every Shriners Hospital has a gait lab, and certainly not every hospital. The gait lab gives you a very moment-by-moment analysis of how the child's muscle and skeleton is functioning as they move through space.

Theresa Hennessey:

I think that what gets lost in medicine today is why we're doing it.

Kristen Carroll:

There are certainly systems out there where if things cost too much, they may be disallowed for the patient. That's never the case here.

Kevin Martin:

That's really what we're here for is to make sure that no one gets turned away. We don't ask about finances upfront to determine whether or not they're going to be seen.

Kristen Carroll:

We are doing this because we love kids. All of us are in it because we really believe in the mission of giving a child superb care, regardless of a child's ability to pay.

Stephanie Dahl:

I genuinely believe that's the philosophy of everyone here, is that they love these kids. They want to do the best for them, and they're willing to give it their all, and they do.

Kevin Martin:

Kids who come here view this as a life experience, not a one-time event because when they come here, they become part of our family.

Jon Guss:

You always feel like in this hospital, there's a happy ending.

Stephanie Dahl:

It's all because of Shriners that brought them to this point where they're healthy and happy and beautiful.


A Leader in Pediatric Specialty Care

Our team of specialists works with you to design a treatment program that focuses on the overall health and well-being of your child.
patient in halo traction with staff member

Motion Analysis Center for Advanced Care

Our facility is equipped with a motion analysis center which allows us to use advanced technology and data to assess your child's condition and provide a customized care plan specific to them.
motion analysis center test in progress

Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services

Our comprehensive rehabilitation program includes specialists who work with your child to optimize their independence and improve their function following an injury or surgical procedure.
physical therapist working with patient

We Understand the Unique Medical Needs of Children

We provide vital, pioneering treatment from birth to age 18. Here, children have the opportunity to be evaluated and treated by doctors recognized as the best by their peers.