Carla Jones

Anyone affected by sickle cell disease knows it is not just patients who need care, families need it too. At Levine Children’s Hospital, families find powerful advocates like nurse navigator Carla Jones. Carla Jones helps ensure pediatric sickle cell patients stay on track with appointments, lab tests, medications, follow-ups and everything necessary to best manage their care. But Jones is also there to support parents who just learned that their newborn has been diagnosed with a serious, lifelong disease. She is the referral go-between who can relay clinical details from one specialist to another. She is also a gentle teacher to pediatric patients, explaining medical realities in terms they can understand. For example, she tells preschoolers how normal blood cells are squishy like water balloons, but that some of their cells are hard and shaped like bananas, which causes problems that need special care. Carla Jones describes her job as “amazing.” She says, “It’s especially gratifying to see parents realize that their children can lead normal lives and to see teens become empowered to take care of themselves. Online profile