Comprehensive care for severe lung disease
The Pulmonary Integrated Ventilator Outpatient Team (PIVOT) at Boston Children's Hospital cares for infants, children, adolescents, and young adults with severe lung disease who require at-home chronic respiratory support, including home ventilation, tracheotomy, non-invasive ventilation (BiPAP and CPAP), and oxygen.
Expert support for families providing at-home care
PIVOT cares for children in both outpatient and inpatient (hospitalized) settings. Our goal is to help your child reach their full respiratory potential at home.
We know how important your family is to your child’s treatment. And we’ve seen how children can thrive with proper at-home care. We’ll partner with you every step of the way to ensure you feel confident and comfortable caring for your child’s complex respiratory needs.
Our approach includes:
- A combination of in-person and virtual visits. Virtual visits allow us to evaluate your child at home. We supplement these with in-person visits so we can examine your child, inspect your equipment, and obtain up-to-date respiratory measurements for your child.
- Training and guidance, provided by a team of experts. Our dedicated care team will work closely with you, your child’s primary care doctor, the remainder of your child’s medical team, and home nursing to provide comprehensive medical care. We’ll teach you how to use medical equipment, how to monitor your child’s breathing, how to recognize and respond to emergencies, safety protocols, resuscitation techniques, and more.
- Close collaboration with durable medical equipment companies (DMEs). Because we work closely with DME companies, we can ensure your child has the equipment they need, troubleshoot any problems that arise, and adjust settings as needed.
PIVOT aims to serve as a “medical home” for children with complex respiratory needs. We pride ourselves on our accessibility to families, and we strive to help keep your child out of the hospital when safe to do so. We have providers available 24 hours a day to help when acute issues and illnesses arise.
A team-based approach
Teamwork is crucial in achieving the best results for your child. Each member of PIVOT is an experienced clinician with specialized training in the care of children and young adults who have chronic lung disease. And we work closely together to ensure that each aspect of your child’s care is customized to their unique needs.
Our team includes:
- Pediatric pulmonologists
- Pulmonary nurse practitioners
- Pulmonary nurses
- Respiratory therapists
- Social workers
Caring for our patients
PIVOT’s patients range in age from infancy to early adulthood. Many of our patients require medical technology to help them breathe, including assistive respiratory devices for cough and lung clearance, full and partial mechanical ventilation, non-invasive ventilatory supports, and oxygen. Our specific areas of expertise include:
- Providing education to help you care for your child at home.
- Helping hospitalized children who are dependent on medical technology for breathing assistance transition back to home and school.
- Weaning children from oxygen therapy and ventilator dependency.
- Providing long-term follow-up care for prevention of acute respiratory illness.
