The state’s first pediatric clinic providing in-home and hospice care just opened in eastern Idaho
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IDAHO FALLS – A local pediatric clinic is expanding its services with a new home health and hospice office.
Just 4 Kids Home Health & Hospice opened Dec. 1 in the space formerly occupied by Intermountain Regenerative Medicine at 2431 Jafer Court in Idaho Falls.
Dr. Aaron Gardner tells EastIdahoNews.com he and his team provide in-home care for kids 1-18 experiencing a broad spectrum of ailments and conditions.
“It covers things from a newborn baby who goes home underweight and needs a feeding tube. A nurse will come in every week or every few days,” Gardner says. “It could also be for a child with very complex and chronic medical conditions … that needs continuous in-home care for their entire life.”
Services also include in-home physical, speech or occupational therapy for children and young adults.
Though the clinic is currently in the middle of an accreditation process, Gardner says they are seeing a handful of patients and anticipate being fully up and running in the next six weeks.
“(Becoming accredited) is the requirement to contract with insurance,” says Gardner. “Once the accreditation is completed, we’ll (be able) to work with all the insurance providers.”
Just 4 Kids Home Health & Hospice is the first in-home pediatric clinic in the state, Gardner says, and the company’s second expansion project since it launched in 2018. Just 4 Kids Urgent Care opened at 3320 South 25th East in the spring of that year. An additional 1,700-square-feet of space was added the following year to offer specialized care through Primary Children’s Hospital.
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Gardner says this new service fills a need among the patients he and his team work with.
“There are great home health companies in the area just like there are great urgent cares in the area, but there’s this little niche of what kids need and it’s a little different,” he says. “This is our (area of expertise) and we thought we could … pull our resources together and redirect it to the home.”
Work on the home and hospice clinic began prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Navigating through that made the need for in-home care even greater, Gardner says.
“The need and use for home health services have just skyrocketed,” he says. “If we can keep kids out of the hospital and provide as much of this medical care in their home, it’s going to save money, they’re going to heal quicker and it’s going to be better for parents and families.”
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Building up the hospice side of the business by providing end of life care for kids is the focus over the next several months, Gardner says, while continuing to recruit good pediatric healthcare professionals to help as many kids as possible.
Due to a pressing need for in-home care, he anticipates relocating to a larger space later this year.
“We’re excited to be here and we’ll be taking on more patients in the coming weeks and months,” says Gardner. “We really feel like this is just a continuation of our mission when we started with urgent care. We deliver health and happiness to children and their families.”
Though the home health services operate 24/7, the office hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Visit the website or Facebook page for more information.
