The Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Short Stay Service was established in 1990 and is located at the 3rd floor of the University of Santo Tomas Hospital-Clinical Division. The unit serves as an ambulatory clinic for children with hematologic and oncologic diseases, providing a cost-effective alternative health care delivery system.

Many children with hematologic and oncologic diseases need diagnostic and therapeutic interventions that usually do not require hospitalizations, thus the short stay service was established. It functions to provide ambulatory care, with facilities for both diagnostic procedures and therapeutic interventions. This minimizes hospital admissions avoiding patient exposure to varied diseases in the hospital setting and stress of hospitalization. It also increases bed efficiency for inpatients. Emergency room admissions are also avoided sparing the already immunocompromised and psychologically-disadvantaged patients from the chaos of the ER department.

One advantage also of having a short stay service is that the caretakers/parents can interact with one another providing the much needed psychological support. In the short stay service, the patients also get to play with one another and in a way lessen the tension of having to undergo certain procedures.