Reuters – Andrew M. Seaman
“U.S. emergency departments are better prepared these days to care for young patients, a new study shows. The average readiness score for emergency departments responding to a survey in 2013 was about 69 percent, compared to an average score of about 55 percent in 2003, researchers say. “I’d say it’s a lot better,” said Dr. Marianne Gausche-Hill, the study’s lead author and chief of pediatric emergency medicine at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California. Readiness, she told Reuters Health, includes having the proper processes, staff and equipment in place to treat children. It also means being able to recognize when a child may need a higher level of care. Several organizations have worked together to improve emergency care for children over the past several years, she told Reuters Health in a phone interview. “It’s an exciting and extremely positive report about how if you work together as a coalition, you begin to see improvements overtime, but you have to keep at it, which is what we did,” she said.”(more)