Our Impact

Mercy Children’s Hospital provides neonatal inpatient and outpatient services to newborns who have special needs because they were born prematurely, or who have medical conditions that require diagnostic evaluation and treatment. Our 30-bed Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, located on the campus of Mercy St. Vincent Medical Center, is the most advanced of its kind in our region, and has long held a Level III designation, the highest awarded by the Ohio Department of Health for the care of critically ill newborns.

Hippotherapy is a physical, occupational, and speech therapy treatment strategy that utilizes the movement of the horse, it is used as part of an integrated treatment program to achieve functional outcomes. Mercy Health Children’s Hospital is the only facility offering hippotherapy in Northwest Ohio and surrounding areas. This movement and multisensory experience allows patients to achieve new functional outcomes and behaviors.

The Child Life program at Mercy Health Children’s Hospital is a very important tool for decreasing the stress and trauma of hospitalization experienced by infants, children and adolescents. Our Child Life Specialists provide play experiences for young patients, as play is the most powerful and effective means of stress reduction in children.  Patients visit with therapy dogs, express their creativity through art, enjoy computer and video games and engage in a variety of other fun activities!

Mercy College of Ohio currently educates over 1,200 students who will become our healthcare providers in the future.  86% of the students are female and the average age is 28.  82% receive financial aid!  Every dollar matters when you have a family, job and are heading back to school.  To bring our giving circle full circle we contribute to scholarship so we help provide the healthcare needed tomorrow.

Mercy Health Children’s Hospital has been a leader in providing autism services to the Toledo Area since 2004. Mercy Health Autism Services provides services to children from birth through the age of 12 and emphasizes evidence-based autism intervention, which include intensive intervention programs, one- on-one intervention with children and their family. We are the only program in the Northwest Ohio Region that utilizes Applied Behavior Analysis, Occupational therapy, Speech Therapy, as well as the P.L.A.Y. Project as core concepts for our care planning.

Whenever life threatening illness occurs, our Maternal- Child/ Pediatric Palliative Care Program is available to help pregnant women, newborns, infants, children and their families clarify complex goals of care through listening, care planning and coordination, symptom management, spiritual guidance and bereavement support. Mercy Health Children’s Hospital believes in the sacredness of life at every stage. Our palliative care team is committed to helping the entire family achieve the best quality of life possible even when confronted with severe illness.

Mercy Health Children’s serves as the regional coordinating agency for the Ohio Children’s Trust Fund, which develops and implements child abuse and neglect prevention programs. Mercy Health Children’s coordinates these efforts in a 16 county are of northwest Ohio.  Mercy Health Children’s also provides support to the Family and Child Abuse Prevention Center to aid in their work to intervene and prevent family violence.

Mercy Health Children’s provides home visiting programs that provide support, parenting skill development and community referrals to mothers of infants and young children. Through these programs, moms are paired with a home visitor who helps to stabilize the family situation so children can thrive, grow and learn.

When an expectant mother is using opioids and wants to stop, her care team can call on the Mother Child Dependency Program to guide the process of achieving this goal. Through case management and referrals mothers-to-be are able to safely stop abusing drugs, have a healthier baby, and are more likely to be able to successfully bring the baby home with them.