Pediatric emergency care
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Pediatric emergency care · Jul 2004
Review Case ReportsGas gangrene secondary to Clostridium perfringens in pediatric oncology patients.
To report 2 cases of severe gas gangrene secondary to Clostridium perfringens in pediatric oncology patients. ⋯ Gas gangrene secondary to C. perfringens is an uncommon but life-threatening and limb-threatening condition in pediatric cancer patients. A high index of suspicion in a immunocompromised child with cancer who presents with extremity pain in combination with neutropenia is the key to early diagnosis and may lead to improved survival. This disease requires prompt recognition and aggressive treatment to allow any hope of recovery. Emergency medicine physicians who treat these children should be aware of this severe and potentially fatal infectious process and should not delay treatment or prompt orthopedic surgery consultation.
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Pediatric emergency care · Jul 2004
Review Case ReportsPatient misidentification in a pediatric emergency department: patient safety and legal perspectives.
Emergency departments across the nation are faced with ever-increasing high volumes, overcrowding, and patient acuity. Along with these growing trends, the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations is instituting new patient safety initiatives to reduce patient medical errors in the hospital setting. The emergency department is one area under great scrutiny with patient identification as primary concern. This article discusses a case study involving patient misidentification in the pediatric emergency department and reviews the legal and safety programs implemented at a children's hospital to improve patient safety outcomes.
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Pediatric emergency care · Jul 2004
Admission predictor modeling in pediatric interhospital transport.
The objective of this investigation was to determine if an existing general severity of illness measure describing pediatric emergency patients, calculated at referring hospitals, predicts the need for hospital admission and intensive care unit (ICU) admission at receiving hospitals. ⋯ This form of the pediatric risk of admission score is not practical as a predictor of hospital and ICU admission among pediatric interhospital transport. Specific calibration could increase its utility for the transport population. This in turn may contribute to more effective interhospital transport triage and more efficient allocation of transport resources.