Nation's Emergency Rooms Ill-Equipped to Handle Pediatric Patients

In a report that should serve as a red flag to hospitals around the country, a team of researchers from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed) have found that there are very few emergency rooms in the United States are properly equipped to handle pediatric patients.

The team sent out surveys and a total of 1,489 emergency rooms sent back responses. Out of these 1,489, just 6% actually had all of the medicines as well as the equipment that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) recommends that they have on hand for pediatric patients. Specifically, half of all the emergency rooms that responded, said that they did not have one every vital piece of equipment, the laryngeal mask airways that are necessary when a child needs to be ventilated. Then 17% of the emergency rooms did not have Magill forceps. This is the instrument that is used to remove foreign matter from a child's airway.

Pediatric patients are aged from 0 to 14 years and the study found that 89% of the visits from patients in this age group to an emergence room were to hospitals that are not children's hospitals. Furthermore, about 25% of the visits are from children in rural areas. Only about 6% of the patients actually go to a hospital with a separate pediatric emergency department.

On the plus side, over half of the emergency departments did report that they had a plan for quality improvement or
performance improvement for pediatric patients and 59% said they were aware of the guidelines from both the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Emergency Physicians guidelines.

The hospitals that were the most prepared to handle pediatric patients tended to be in urban areas, have higher volumes, a separate emergence care cents for pediatric patients, had physicians and nursing coordinators just for pediatrics, were aware of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Emergency Physicians guidelines and were also interested in implementing the guidelines.