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While
no one can watch their children every second of the day,
the fact is that most preventable injuries happen while
caregivers are called away or distracted, even for a moment.
Unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death and
disability among children newborn to 14 in the United States.
Among children under 5 years old, 82 out of 100,000 have
a traumatic brain injury each year, and most of those injuries
are caused by falls and motor vehicle crashes. In addition,
20 to 25 percent of all children each year sustain an injury
severe enough to require medical attention. For this reason,
hospitals must be prepared to handle pediatric emergencies.
In spite of national pediatric trauma statistics, there
are a limited number of hospital emergency departments throughout
the country that can meet the special needs of children
requiring emergent access to the health care system.
Children
react differently than adults to stress, metabolize drugs
differently, and suffer different illnesses and injuries.
Because of these unique differences, children's emergency
and critical care medical needs must be recognized separately
Jefferson
Memorial Hospital is approved for pediatric care and is
a specialized Level III trauma center that helps ensure
that children receive the emergency and critical care appropriate
for their needs. Jefferson Memorial Hospital's approach
to treating children in the Emergency Department is referred
to as Always Ready for Kids (ARK). "Always Ready for
Kids". This means that Jefferson Memorial constantly
strive to meet the needs of pediatric patients throughout
the continuum of care. This includes specialized training
for both nurses and physicians, capitalizing on the advance
technologies that provide us with proper equipment designed
especially for the smaller patients and we have an established
Performance Improvement program, in which the hospital has
a multidisciplinary team review each pediatric chart.
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