How One Hospital Made Its ER Safer for Kids

livemint.com:

One of the nation’s smallest hospitals is among the most prepared to see children in an emergency. Three years ago, Grand River Health wasn’t close. The 25-bed hospital near the western slope of the Rocky Mountains had scored a low 51 on a 100-point test measuring its readiness.

The hospital turned things around in recent months, however, by naming child-emergency coordinators, color-coding equipment in the E.R. for children of different sizes and training staff to perform procedures on kids. It even had doctors and nurses practicing how to create emergency airways in the narrow throats of goats and sheep carcasses.

Grand River Health, which scored a 97.5 on the pediatric-readiness test in June, shows how emergency rooms can take simple and inexpensive steps to be ready to take care of young patients. Its experience also shows the important role that health authorities play when they push hospitals to improve. Research finds that children in critical condition are more likely to survive in a prepared emergency room.

But many departments aren’t ready. The Wall Street Journal has reported that hundreds of children die or are severely injured because they are taken to emergency departments poorly prepared to take care of them. The Journal also reported that only half of states have either mandatory or voluntary programs for certifying that an emergency department is pediatric-ready, and only 14% of emergency departments nationwide have been deemed ready.

Like most emergency departments, Grand River’s, in Rifle, Colo., sees many more adults than children. The unfamiliarity and inexperience can impair proper care. Nurses may not know where to find child-size tubes and other equipment, while doctors may not recognize a child’s