Patient and family resources

Preparing for your visit or stay

We focus on a family-friendly environment to help make your child's treatment at Children’s Health as comfortable as possible.

Our commitment to care

At Children's Health, the insight we draw from our patients' experiences shapes the care we provide. As soon as you enter our doors, the safety of our patients, their families, and our fellow team members remains our top priority.

Meet your family-centered care team

Family-centered care is based on strong partnerships between families and health care providers. By working with patients and their families, practitioners learn about patients from the people who know them best. The benefit of the help and insights from family members allows doctors and staff to better plan and deliver patient care.

Children’s Health℠ mobile app

In our second century of service, Children’s Health℠ is committed to delivering a patient experience as extraordinary as our patient care. With our new mobile app, we’re providing a convenient connection to the award-winning Children’s Health system in the palm of your hand, for contacting your care team, wayfinding for parking and within the Dallas and Plano campuses, virtual care, easy access to MyChart and more.

MyChart

Children’s Health encourages our patient families to use MyChart, an online medical records system used by many major health care systems. MyChart provides a comprehensive digital dashboard of your child’s health care needs, allowing you to manage appointments, view medical records and test results, request medication refills, pay your bill and even submit a question for your doctor, all from the convenience of your personal computer or mobile device. MyChart can be accessed in English and Spanish, both online and through the Children’s Health Mobile App.

MyChart bedside

MyChart Bedside provides real-time information during a hospital stay. When a patient is in the hospital, they can access much of the same information through MyChart and MyChart Bedside. If you already have a Children’s Health MyChart account, you can use MyChart Bedside from the MyChart app on your personal device. MyChart Bedside has additional unique features, however, such as ordering meals and viewing hospital amenities.

Medical records request

Many records can be requested through MyChart at no charge. If you are not able to request copies of your child’s medical records through MyChart or do not have a MyChart account, you may submit a request in person, by mail or fax. A copy fee may be applied for this type of request.

Language and interpreter services

For families who do not speak English, talking to nurses and doctors about their child’s illness can be challenging – so we offer interpretation services free of charge. Please inform your caregiver if these services are needed.

Family resource library

Our Family Resource Libraries at Children's Health℠ focuses on a relaxing, family-friendly environment to help make every child's stay as comfortable and convenient as possible. The library is filled with books, e-books, resources, online materials, computers, and tablets. It provides an inviting place for patients and families to seek information about a diagnosis or treatment.

Resources for your child

Attending to the physical, emotional and psychological aspects of childhood illness led Children’s Health to offer resources for in-patients within our system. Learn more about school services and activities for kids while in our care.

Social work

Families often turn to the social services department for support in times of need. Social workers can provide helpful resources for families seeking assistance with crisis intervention, adaptation to illness and hospitalization, individual and family counseling, support groups, discharge and home healthcare planning, financial aid, lodging assistance, and referral to appropriate community resources and programs. At Children’s Health, our goal is to provide you and your child with the best care in Texas.

Spiritual care and education

The Spiritual Care and Education team can meet religious and spiritual needs for prayer or ritual, provide copies of scriptures from various religious traditions, offer blessings before surgery, one-on-one counseling, sacred play with age-appropriate stories, or arrange visits from a religious leader of a specific faith tradition. We offer traditional rites, prayers, and sacred play with age-appropriate stories. Daily devotionals and Sunday worship services are also held in the hospital chapel.

Visitor guidelines

We focus on a family-friendly environment to help make your child's stay at Children’s Health℠ as comfortable and convenient as possible. Part of that comfort may include seeing friendly, familiar faces while staying in the hospital.

Family Advisor Network (FAN)

The Children’s Health Family Advisor Network (FAN) is a positive, solutions-oriented collaborative of current and former Children’s Health patients, their families and our team members who use their unique perspectives and clinical and professional expertise to drive meaningful improvements to the patient experience.

Car seat program

Did you know that in North Texas, 76 percent of children’s car seats are installed incorrectly? Using a properly installed car seat can reduce the rate of a fatal injury by up to 71 percent in infants and 54 percent in toddlers. One easy and essential way to learn how to properly install your car seat is to have a Certified Child Passenger Safety Technician check your seat and teach you how to use it. Children’s Health℠ has free car seat checks by appointment; the service is open to anyone and only takes about 30 minutes.

Vaccine information

Vaccines work by exposing your child to a small, safe amount of a weakened or dead virus or bacteria. If your child comes in contact with that particular germ in the future, their immune system will recognize it and rally to fight it off. Kids who have received immunizations will either not become sick at all or get a milder form of the illness. Vaccines are a natural way to protect children from infectious diseases. Learn more about vaccines and current immunization schedules.

Swimming safety - Know Before You Go

Children's Health℠ is partnering with the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas, Alliance Data, the Dallas Area Safe Kids Coalition and IPSSA on the Know Before You Go drowning prevention campaign to educate families about the dangers of drowning and the rules of water safety.The Know Before You Go program spreads the message that every drowning is preventable when parents take appropriate precautions. Tips on how to stay safe in the water are taught, as are demonstrations on proper CPR techniques and the use of flotation devices.

Featured health and wellness content

Stay up to date on current illnesses and topical information for Children’s health and wellbeing. Subscribe to our Family Newsletter.

Health and wellness alliance for children

The Alliance’s first clinical focus is on pediatric asthma – the top reason for Children's Health emergency department admissions. Asthma affects about 60,000 children in Dallas and carries an annual economic cost of $60 million. Childhood asthma is a serious chronic respiratory disease that leads to more trips to the emergency room, more hospitalizations, more missed school days for children and more missed work days for parents than any other single health issue affecting children in Dallas County.