Special Care Clinic

The Special Care Clinic at Children's Hospital Colorado is a comprehensive and integrated program that offers primary care, co-management and consultation services to children with chronic conditions, complex medical conditions and special healthcare needs.

About our Special Care Clinic for children

Our experts treat children with a variety of special healthcare needs, such as high-risk newborns, children with genetic disorders and children with developmental disabilities. We provide a medical home and support community for children with substantial healthcare needs and functional limitations who need healthcare services on a regular basis.

We support families and primary care providers across the Rocky Mountain region by offering:

• Consultation services for children who live a far distance from Denver
• Assessment and management strategies for community care providers

Why choose our Special Care Clinic

In addition to primary care and consultation services, the Special Care Clinic (SCC) offers co-management. Co-management is a partnership between families, community primary care providers (PCPs), and SCC providers. Our shared goal is to combine the resources and expertise of families, SCC providers, and community providers to promote the integration of care and meet needs for families. Co-management promotes communication between families and providers to clarify the roles and responsibilities of each member of the care team.

Our clinic can support your child and their PCP by providing specialized pediatric care and support through one plan of care. We help your community PCP address all medical health details and provide them with an in-depth understanding of your child’s medical conditions.

We must see your child at least once every 12 months in our Special Care Clinic. This enables us to provide the best possible care and allows your child to maintain an active patient status. Your child should also continue to see their community PCP for routine well-child visits.

Who we treat in the Special Care Clinic

We provide primary care for children with complex medical conditions, including:

• Spina bifida
• Congenital heart defects
• Chromosomal abnormalities (Down syndrome and other chromosomal rearrangements)
• Other genetic or metabolic disorders and syndromes (Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, mitochondrial myopathies, Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome)
• Premature babies (infants with complex medical issues)
• Children with a combination of medical and developmental or behavioral disorders
• Children with chronic respiratory issues
• Feeding problems, including the use of feeding tubes
• Children in foster care with complex medical needs
• Intellectual disabilities
• Autism

We offer coordination of complex appointments for patients who need to see multiple doctors. We also provide additional consultation services such as:

• Child psychiatry for both cognitive and behavioral disorders (dual diagnosis)
• Adolescent gynecology
• Pediatric neurology
• Nutritional services
• Respiratory therapy

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome care

The Special Care Clinic is home to the Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Clinic, which uses a multidisciplinary approach to provide specialized care for children and adults with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS). EDS is a group of genetic disorders that cause abnormal flexibility or elasticity of the body's connective tissues.

The EDS Clinic was established in 2019 by EDS expert Ellen Elias, MD, and is a designated member of the Ehlers-Danlos Society's CORE Network of Excellence.

Our team approach helps us consolidate care, bringing different experts together in one place so we can be as effective and efficient as possible for each appointment. By working with subspecialists in our hospital, we provide a highly individualized care plan to address your child’s unique needs and help them live their best life. 

Our multidisciplinary team includes pediatric experts from many different specialties, including:

• Allergy and immunology: to treat symptoms caused by allergies, hypersensitivities and mast-cell dysregulation
• Cardiology: to treat symptoms caused by orthostatic intolerance and structural heart valve disorders
• Chronic pain
• Gastroenterology: to treat symptoms such as gastroparesis, constipation and other functional intestinal disorders
• Hematology
• Neurology and neurosurgery: to treat symptoms such as migraine and other headaches and autonomic dysfunction
• Orthopedics and physical therapy: to treat symptoms related to orthostatic intolerance, joint subluxation or dislocations and deconditioning

Our team coordinates appointment scheduling for patients who need to see multiple doctors and aim for same-day appointments whenever possible to reduce travel time for families. As a consultative clinic, we work in partnership with families and their primary care providers to manage your child's EDS symptoms, but we are not a replacement for primary care. All patients must have an established primary care provider to be seen in the EDS Clinic. 

In addition to children, we also care for adults with EDS. For patients older than 21, our team will help determine which specialists to see, but the patient's primary care provider must write the referral.

If you are interested in being seen in the EDS Clinic, please contact the Special Care Clinic by calling 720-777-6739.

Palliative care for kids with chronic or complex conditions

Our Special Care Clinic has dedicated palliative care to support any child with a life-threatening or life-limiting diagnosis. This team also works to create positive experiences and celebrate moments of joy during a difficult time. Learn more about our palliative care team and how they help ease the symptoms, pain and stress of serious illness for a child and their family.

Contact the Special Care Clinic

If you're interested in our co-management services, call us at 720-777-2950. A staff member and nurse will each ask you several questions from a questionnaire to determine if co-management is the best fit for your child.