TAG: "Emergency department"

Health tips for Halloween


UC San Diego experts: No trick to treating children (and adults) to a safe Halloween.

Lee Cantrell

The Emergency Department staff at UC San Diego Health System — along with the California Poison Control System-San Diego Division located at UC San Diego Medical Center — offer the following safety precautions to help parents and guardians make Halloween safe.

“The Poison Center does tend to see an upswing in calls around the Halloween season,” said Lee Cantrell, Pharm.D., director of the California Poison Control System-San Diego Division, at UC San Diego Medical Center. “But with a few reminders and taking some precautions, parents can stay ahead of most dangers.”

Burn prevention

  • Keep an eye on jack-o-lanterns with burning candles inside. Make sure they’re placed where they cannot start a fire.
  • Look for costumes, wigs and masks that are flame resistant and with room enough to allow a child to dress warmly underneath. Flame resistant does not mean the fabric won’t catch fire, only that it will resist burning.

Safe eating

  • Feed children before they go trick-or-treating. Select a small amount of candy or other food to eat while trick-or-treating so they won’t be tempted to eat from the bag before their treats can be checked.
  • Look carefully at all treats to detect signs of tampering. Throw away unwrapped candy or treats not in the original wrapper, candy with faded or torn wrappers and candies that show signs of rewrapping.
  • Parents with children of different ages should sort the candies to make sure that younger kids don’t get hold of small hard candies, peanuts or other objects that may get lodged in a youngster’s throat.
  • Remember, some treats, especially chocolate, can be poisonous to pets.

Costume musts

  • Face paints, glues and glitters should be made of non-toxic materials. Some children have allergic reactions to these products, such as a rash or itching. If this occurs, remove the make-up immediately and thoroughly cleanse the skin with mild soap and water.
  • If your child wears a mask, make sure it does not impair the child’s vision or breathing.
  • Physicians recommend kids wear flat shoes with their costumes and make sure the costumes are short enough to prevent the child from tripping.

Trick-or-treating tips

  • Never let a child trick-or-treat alone. An adult should accompany young children in familiar neighborhoods, visiting known areas.
  • Carry a flashlight after dusk and watch for cars.
  • Make walkways and lawns safe by removing obstacles and leaving outside lights on.
  • Stay away from barking dogs or other upset animals.
  • Choose costumes with light or bright colors, which can be seen by drivers.
  • Use reflective tape on costumes and trick-or-treat bags so that they are highly visible.
  • Halloween also means parties for parents. Make sure all alcohol and cigarette butts are cleaned up as these items can poison small children.

“The Poison Center recommends that parents carefully check all treats before allowing their trick-or-treaters to taste anything,” said Cantrell. “This is the best way to prevent poisoning incidents.”

Parents who find any candy that has been tampered with should report the incident to the Police Department. If children are experiencing any symptoms following ingestion of food or candy, parents should call the California Poison Control System-San Diego Division at (800) 222-1222. The Poison Center is open 24-hours per day, seven days a week.

Alcohol consumption warning

Emergency physicians in UC San Diego Health System’s emergency departments say they experience an upswing in alcohol-related incidents. “Unfortunately, we can almost always count on an increase,” said Theodore Chan, M.D., medical director of UC San Diego’s emergency department.  “Those numbers can be reduced if adult partiers take a moderate approach to alcohol consumption and designate a driver before the evening’s festivities begin.”

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Longer trips to the ER, especially for minorities & poor


UCSF researcher has documented inequalities in accessing trauma care, decline of emergency care in U.S.

Renee Hsia, UC San Francisco

Closures of hospital trauma centers are disproportionately affecting poor, uninsured and African American populations, and nearly a fourth of Americans are now forced to travel farther than they once did.

In a new study led by the University of California, San Francisco, researchers examined changes in driving time to trauma centers, which have increasingly been shuttered in recent years.

They found that by 2007, 69 million Americans — nearly one in four — had to travel farther to the nearest trauma center than they traveled in 2001.  Most affected by the closures were African Americans, poor, uninsured and rural residents.

The study will be published in the October issue of Health Affairs.

“Trauma centers aren’t just for ‘certain’ people — if you sustain a serious injury from a car accident or fall off your roof, you need a trauma center,’’ said lead author Renee Y. Hsia, M.D., an assistant professor of emergency medicine at UCSF. She is also an attending physician in the emergency department at San Francisco General Hospital & Trauma Center and a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Physician Faculty Scholar.

“We found evidence that vulnerable communities have less geographic access to trauma care, adding to their health disparities,’’ Hsia added. “This study will help us better understand how trauma center closures are affecting people.’’

Hsia’s research centers on illustrating inequalities in accessing trauma care as well as the decline of emergency care in the United States. She has documented that tens of millions of Americans do not have ready access to a certified trauma center, and that nearly a third of urban and suburban emergency rooms have closed in the last two decades.

For their new study, the researchers analyzed 31,475 ZIP codes in the United States, covering some 283 million people, nearly the entire nation.

Overall, nearly three-quarters of the U.S. lives within 10 miles of a trauma center. Of the remainder, 14 percent live more than 30 miles from a trauma center. Communities with a higher number of residents under the federal poverty level, black residents, uninsured residents and rural residents faced longer drives compared to communities with a low share of these vulnerable populations.

For nearly 16 million people, the extra driving time amounts to about 30 minutes — a critical period for people facing life-threatening injuries such as stroke and gunshot wounds.

Trauma services are not, as commonly believed, available in all hospitals. They are hospitals with emergency departments that provide specialty care for injured patients, regardless of ability to pay. As a result, trauma centers face greater financial jeopardy depending on the surrounding patient population.

In 1990 there were 1,125 trauma centers in the United States; by 2005, about 30 percent of them had closed primarily because of the high costs and fewer patients able to pay the bills.  The majority of closures took place in urban areas but rural communities have also been affected.

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Online service allows UCSF patients to reserve Emergency Department visit


InQuickER service is designed for patients with non-threatening minor medical needs.


UCSF patients with minor medical needs seeking treatment in the Emergency Department now can make an appointment to be seen – waiting at home rather in the hospital – via a new online check-in service called InQuickER.

UCSF Medical Center’s Emergency Department (ED) at Parnassus Heights is now offering InQuickER designed for patients with non-threatening minor medical needs.

UCSF patients can register online for a $4.99 fee and pick an open slot for an emergency room visit. The fee will be refunded if they’re not seen within 15 minutes.

In April, UCSF did a trial run with the online service, which 22 people used. UCSF Medical Center launched the system a few weeks ago.

“One thing we encountered during the trial was that a lot of patients were using it inappropriately,” said Jennifer Dearman, the Emergency Department’s patient care manager. “The online registration is screened by ED nurses and we have had to advise some patients to come directly to the ED. This service is for a fast-track kind of patient.”

“For example, a cancer patient on chemotherapy with a fever can have complicated issues and should be seen in the regular ED, so InQuickER is not appropriate for that person.”

About 105 patients a day visit the emergency room at UCSF Medical Center on the Parnassus campus, Dearman said, and the average time between arrival and departure, for those not admitted to the hospital, is four-and-a-half hours.

That’s in keeping with the average wait in 2009 for ER patients throughout California: four hours and 34 minutes –  27 minutes longer than the U.S. average, according to a 2010 report by health care consulting firm Press Ganey.

Dearman said patient satisfaction was the main reason UCSF Medical Center adopted InQuickER. “It also helps us control the flow,” she said. “The general population doesn’t think the emergency room ever has slow times. But it does.”

UCSF is one of 55 health care facilities in 13 states partnering with InQuickER, said spokesman Chris Song. The service, based in Nashville, Tenn., began in 2006 after its founder, Tyler Kiley, had to go to an emergency room and spent hours witnessing stasis and frustration.

The service is available online at https://ucsfmedicalcenter.inquicker.com.

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Hospital overcrowding affects outcomes for heart attack patients


Heart attack patients die at a higher rate when their ambulance is diverted to another hospital.

Renee Hsia, UC San Francisco

A new study from the University of California, San Francisco, found that heart attack patients die at a higher rate when the nearest emergency room is so overcrowded that their ambulance is diverted to another hospital.

“This is one of the first studies to actually link how crowding affects outcomes,” emergency room physician Renee Hsia said. “We were able to show that patient mortality, whether we measure it by 30-day, 60-day, nine-month or one-year, mortality increases when you’ve been experiencing diversion. So, when your ER is crowded, essentially.”

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Heart attack death rates linked to ambulance diversion


ER crowding leads to worse outcomes for patients.

Renee Hsia, UC San Francisco

Heart attack patients die at a higher rate when their nearest emergency room is so overtaxed that the ambulance transporting them is dispatched to another hospital, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco.

The findings are published online by JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The research also will be presented today (June 13) at the AcademyHealth’s annual research meeting in Seattle.

“This is one of the first studies to tie patient-level outcomes to daily ambulance diversion logs across multiple cities and counties,” says senior author Dr. Renee Y. Hsia, assistant professor of emergency medicine at UCSF. She also works as an emergency physician attending at San Francisco General Hospital.

“Everyone knows that ER crowding is a problem. What people need to know is whether crowding affects them and their health. Those of us who work in the ER know that when it’s crowded, it affects our ability to provide optimal care. In the study, we finally show that when ambulances are diverted, the outcomes of patients with acute myocardial infarction are worse. In fact, for every 100 patients who are unfortunate enough to have a heart attack when ambulances are being diverted for long periods of time, our study shows that there are three potentially avoidable deaths.”

Ambulance diversion is triggered when a hospital’s ER is too busy to accept new patients. The ER is temporarily closed, and the ambulance takes the patient to the next available ER, sometimes miles away. For patients undergoing a heart attack, the lost time can be critical.

Ambulance diversion is a particularly common practice in urban settings. The National Center for Health Statistics has estimated that hospitals divert more than half a million ambulances annually in the United States, especially in winter, averaging about one ambulance every minute.

The study examined the outcomes of 13,860 Medicare patients admitted between 2000 and 2005, as well as daily ambulance logs from four densely populated counties in California — Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara. The counties represent 63 percent of the state’s population. The data encompassed 508 different ZIP codes and 149 emergency departments.

When the closest ER was on diversion status for at least 12 hours, long-term mortality rates of patients rose during a 30-day, 90-day, 9-month and 1-year period. For example, the 30-day mortality rate of heart attack patients unaffected by diversion on their day of admission was 15 percent compared to an 18 percent mortality rate for patients admitted to the hospital on days with more than 12 hours of diversion. One-year mortality for patients not affected by diversion was 29 percent compared to 32 percent for diverted patients, even when controlling for age, co-morbidities, catheterization capabilities, hospital size, and other factors.

The authors say the study points to the need for hospitals to reapportion resources to reduce ER crowding and prolonged ambulance diversion.

“While demand on emergency care is increasing…supply of emergency care is decreasing,” the authors note. “If these issues are not addressed on a larger scale, ED conditions will deteriorate, leaving significant implications for all.”

The study was supported by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Research Resources and the Clinical & Translational Science Institute at UCSF. The sponsors had no role in the design and conduct of the study, in the gathering and analysis of data or the writing of the report.

UCSF is a leading university dedicated to promoting health worldwide through advanced biomedical research, graduate-level education in the life sciences and health professions, and excellence in patient care.

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Market factors affect closures of emergency departments nationwide


Nearly one-third of urban and suburban emergency rooms have closed in the last two decades.

Renee Hsia, UC San Francisco

Despite a rise in the number of emergency room patients, the number of hospital-based emergency departments in the U.S. is in decline, according to a study led by Renee Hsia, M.D., M.Sc., an emergency physician at San Francisco General Hospital, and featured in the May 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

During the last two decades, nearly one-third of urban and suburban emergency rooms have closed, with little known about related hospital, community, and market factors. In particular, federal law requiring emergency treatment for those in need, regardless of ability to pay, may make emergency departments especially vulnerable to market forces.

“One of the reasons we did this study was to examine the overall trends in the supply of ERs,” said Hsia, an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine, UCSF School of Medicine. “Now we have good data to show that we have fewer ERs with increased demand, which inevitably means more crowding. While we do our best in the ER to triage and spend the time on the most critical patients, there is a point when demands outpace the availability of resources.”

The study concludes that from 1990 to 2009, the number of hospital emergency rooms in non-rural areas declined by 27 percent, from 2,446 to 1,779. An analysis of 2,814 urban acute-care hospitals found that hospitals in more competitive markets, for-profit hospitals, hospitals with a low profit margin, safety-net hospitals and those serving a higher share of populations in poverty have a significantly higher risk of closing their emergency departments.

Hsia’s research focuses on barriers to access to emergency care for vulnerable populations, as well as reimbursement and financing within health care systems. She is also a recipient of the KL2 Scholar career development award, supported by the Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) at UCSF.

Read the full text of the article in JAMA here: Factors Associated with Closures of Emergency Departments in the United States

 

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San Francisco General: A ‘unique partnership’


Mayor sees first-hand how more than 2,000 UCSF physicians and staff work with San Francisco Department of Public Health employees to deliver needed care.

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and UCSF's Sue Carlisle

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee and UCSF's Sue Carlisle

San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH) has served the residents of San Francisco for more than 130 years as part of the historic partnership between UCSF and the city of San Francisco.

San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee toured the hospital last week to learn about how the more than 2,000 UCSF physicians and staff work side-by-side with the dedicated employees of the San Francisco Department of Public Health to deliver around-the-clock trauma, psychiatric and emergency care, outpatient treatment and a wide range of other important health care services to everyone in San Francisco, regardless of their ability to pay.

“On my visit, I saw first-hand how the unique partnership between San Francisco General Hospital, the city and the University of California, San Francisco, has enormously benefited all of us,” said Mayor Edwin Lee. “The partnership provides a framework for quality patient care and improving the health outcomes for San Franciscans.”

The relationship between SFGH and UCSF dates back to the first written affiliation agreement in 1959, which outlines the responsibilities and expectations of both entities.

“We wouldn’t be a hospital without this partnership,” said Sue Currin, R.N., M.S., chief executive officer of SFGH. “Our mission is driven to care for a vulnerable patient population, and we don’t have a lot of resources, which constantly challenges us to see how we can make it work with less. The relationship fosters creative and innovative approaches and we’re not afraid to try new things.”

The affiliation between SFGH and UCSF is mutually beneficial, combining clinical and teaching activities to uniformly provide the highest quality of care to patients while spending considerably less money than if the two entities functioned independently. The affiliation budget is evaluated extensively each year to best serve the needs of SFGH patients.

Upon arriving at the hospital, Mayor Lee first visited Stan Lee, a San Francisco firefighter who was injured the day before while responding to a blaze. San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White was also on hand, praising SFGH for its high-quality, top-shelf trauma response and care.

The mayor then visited several departments that are essential to serving the needs of San Francisco residents, including the pediatric clinic, the intensive care unit, the emergency room, the psychiatric emergency room and labor and delivery.

Located in the Mission District, SFGH treats approximately 100,000 patients per year and provides 20 percent of San Francisco’s inpatient care and 30 percent of all ambulance traffic. Many residents, especially those interested in family medicine, are attracted to SFGH for training and, because UCSF supplies all of the physicians to SFGH a strong foundation of health care delivered at the hospital.

“All of the UCSF residents come through SFGH for training, and on any given day at least one-third of residents as well as medical students are here,” said Sue Carlisle, M.D., Ph.D., associate dean at SFGH for the UCSF School of Medicine. “It’s giving the trainees the opportunity to get experience working with a different patient population.”

In addition to being an essential training ground for UCSF, SFGH is also a major research site for the university, receiving approximately $150 million in research grants – accounting for 25 percent of all National Institutes of Health grants to the entire university.

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Preventing drunk driving


UC Davis Medical Center participates in “Every 15 Minutes” campaign with CHP and local high schools.


uch_ucd_every15minutes_orAt the end of March, two seniors from Sacramento’s John F. Kennedy High School were brought to UC Davis Medical Center emergency department via ambulance, the victims of a devastating drunken-driving accident. One of the students, Nick Tom, was left brain dead. The other student, Tristan Lay, was left a paraplegic.

Happily, the accident, the ambulance journey to the emergency department and the death and injuries all were simulated. They were part of an annual event called “Every 15 Minutes,” a national youth drunken-driving prevention program whose name is derived from the assertion that “Every 15 minutes someone in the United States dies in an alcohol-related vehicle collision.”

UC Davis Medical Center has been involved in the program, which takes place each spring, for the past 12 years, according to nurse Christy Adams, coordinator of the UC Davis Trauma Prevention and Outreach Program. Organized by the California Highway Patrol (CHP), Every 15 Minutes is a collaboration between local hospitals, the CHP and local high schools. It is supported nationwide by funding from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

At the high schools, one student is removed from class every 15 minutes to simulate deaths from vehicular collisions. Later in the day, traffic collisions are simulated at the school sites, and students “injured” in the collision are taken to hospital emergency departments. The students’ parents are on hand to learn the extent of their children’s injuries. The student who portrays the drunken driver experiences what it is like to be booked into jail. Other students videotape the accident, ambulance ride and hospitalization. The videos are shown during assemblies at the schools on the following day.

“The Every 15 Minutes program challenges teens to think about the consequences of their actions when they drink and drive. It is a powerful demonstration of how a single decision can affect so many lives,” Adams said.

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Preventing burnout in the ER


Emergency department physicians take steps to prevent burnout.


uch_ucd_ed_answering_phone_tWhat began as a journal club discussion of physician burnout in the UC Davis Department of Emergency Medicine has evolved into a well-developed system for addressing the problem, featuring tactics such as forming pairs to provide mutual support in developing personal plans to reduce stress, and identifying and dealing with systemic sources of stress in the department.

While the project has not eliminated all sources of stress in the department, it initiated an important discussion about physician burnout and is a significant step toward enhancing awareness of the issue and emphasizing the importance of physicians caring for each other.

“In a profession whose calling is taking care of others, it is essential but can be difficult to create time and space to care for one’s self,” said Garen Wintemute, professor of emergency medicine and faculty development director for the emergency department. “Yet, ironically, to ignore this aspect of life can make excelling and thriving less likely. ED physicians everyday walk through the ED and use their assessment skills to determine who is in trouble. These are the same assessment skills that can be used to notice how a colleague is doing and to check in with colleagues and with one’s self.”

Following the journal-club discussion, Wintemute received the enthusiastic go-ahead from Nathan Kuppermann, department chair, to pursue a program of training and self-reflection for the faculty on the health of the department, with a commitment to identifying potential causes of emergency department burnout and support for change.

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Nursing research conference spotlights work by UCLA nursing school


Western Institute of Nursing conference will include presentations from 17 UCLA nursing faculty members and students.


uch_uclaHighlighting the UCLA School of Nursing’s ongoing commitment to cutting-edge research, 17 faculty members and students will present important new findings at the Western Institute of Nursing’s annual Communicating Nursing Research Conference, which runs from April 13 to 16 in Las Vegas.

“The breadth and depth of the clinical research being presented at this conference demonstrates the high level of nursing research that is being conducted at nursing schools around the country,” said Ann Williams, the UCLA School of Nursing’s associate dean of research. “These research efforts are helping to build the scientific foundation for breakthroughs in disease prevention, pain management, cancer care, improving quality of life, and end-of-life care. The UCLA School of Nursing is proud to be a leader in nurse research that is transforming medicine and the nursing profession.”

Among the UCLA School of Nursing research highlights being presented:

On April 14, doctoral student Ann Anaebere will discuss her National Institutes of Health–funded research on the factors that impact condom use and sex-partner decision-making among urban African American women. The findings could offer nurses a clear framework by which to cultivate interventions that are both culturally and developmentally appropriate and that enhance sexually safe behaviors.

On April 16, faculty member Mary Cadogan will discuss emergency department care of vulnerable older adults. Her study, part of a larger project on the quality and safety of care transitions for older adults, suggests that vulnerable older adults may go to the emergency department for care because of incomplete or misunderstood information — which continues during their visit and frequently results in costly examinations that provide uncertain findings. The study also suggests that the current model of emergency care may not meet the needs of individuals who have multiple co-morbid conditions and geriatric syndromes.

Also that day, UCLA faculty and students will present important poster sessions. Professor Linda P. Sarna, internationally known for her research on smoking, will present a poster on her continuing exploration of nursing collaboration in tobacco-control research in China. With approximately 350 million smokers, China has the largest population of smokers in the world, and only 6 percent of smokers have quit. Previous research has indicated that nurses in China do not have the necessary knowledge and skills to help smokers quit. Sarna explores the impact of nurse workshops that offer a forum for nurse-scientists to present their work on tobacco control. It is a model for showcasing and supporting collaborative international nursing research efforts.

And doctoral student Mary Baron Nelson will co-present a poster on research to determine whether the treatment of childhood brain tumors with high-dose chemotherapy causes unintended neurocognitive deficits and decreased quality of life. Brain tumors are the second most common type of cancer in children, and for survivors, neurocognitive deficits are common. There is evidence that chemotherapy contributes to cognitive effects in adults, but there has been little research on these effects in children.

The Western Institute of Nursing is a professional organization of registered nurses and other health care professionals dedicated to advancing nursing science, education and practice to improve health care outcomes.

The UCLA School of Nursing is redefining nursing through the pursuit of uncompromised excellence in research, education, practice, policy and patient advocacy. Rated among the nation’s top nursing schools by U.S. News & World Report, the school also is ranked No. 7 in nursing research funded by the National Institutes of Health and No. 1 in NIH stimulus funding. In 2009–10, the school received $18 million in total research grant funding and was awarded 26 faculty research grants. The school offers programs for the undergraduate (B.S.), postgraduate (M.S.N. and M.E.C.N.) and doctoral (Ph.D.) student.

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Repairing a tiny heart


When a cold is more than it seems to be.

Jennifer Benning and son Cody

Jennifer Benning and son Cody

Every parent experiences a moment when they worry that their seemingly healthy child’s cough or sneeze could be the symptom of a serious illness. That frightening scenario came to pass for Jennifer Benning, then a stay-at-home mom living in Fairfield.

Today Benning’s energetic, talkative and perpetually cheerful 20-month-old son Cody is a happy, healthy toddler. But in July 2009, Benning took Cody to see a pediatrician because of a cold and ended up heading for the emergency department to fight for her baby’s life.

“It was really scary,” Benning said. “I had taken Cody to the doctor for what I thought was just a cold and some minor breathing problems. They checked his heart and other organs, found that his liver was enlarged and told me he had a cardiovascular condition.”

She recalled that the team tried to appear calm and instructed her to proceed immediately to a nearby hospital. It wasn’t long before emergency department physicians at that community hospital referred the family to UC Davis Children’s Hospital, 60 miles away in Sacramento, and arranged for ambulance transport.

Jennifer’s father, Rick Mears of San Francisco, contacted her Mormon bishop to visit mother and son to provide a blessing on the spot. With that, Cody was bundled up and, with an anxious mother at his side, was transferred to UC Davis. Rick and other family members followed in separate vehicles.

Only then would the family learn the extent of Cody’s illness. During a 10-day hospitalization, the first of two, Cody was diagnosed with a rare heart malformation in which all four pulmonary veins do not connect normally to the left atrium, but instead drain into the right atrium. The condition is called “total anomalous pulmonary venous return.” The illness had led to the deterioration of his vital organs and would require a highly complex surgery.

“His cardiologist, Mark Parrish, spelled out the risks, including the possibility that Cody could die in surgery,” Jennifer said. “That’s when I started crying.”

Ming-Sing Si, Cody’s surgeon, met with Benning two days later, and drew a picture of a healthy heart and then a picture of what Cody’s heart looked like. He then reiterated the risks of the surgery. Benning was in disbelief and shock that all of this was happening to her baby.

“Cody came to us in fairly dire condition,” said Si, a professor of pediatric cardiothoracic surgery at UC Davis. “This heart defect is not compatible with life. He came to us in congestive heart failure.”

Si said that correcting the condition required open-heart surgery: placing Cody on a heart-lung machine, stopping the infant’s heart and connecting the anomalous veins to the left atrium.

“I consider this a high-risk procedure, given his poor condition, but he tolerated it well and his recovery was excellent,” Si said.

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$1.4M to study pediatric emergency department care


Study will examine the effectiveness of the Pediatric Emergency Department Quality Assessment Tool.

James Marcin, UC Davis

James Marcin, UC Davis

Researchers at UC Davis Health System will study the quality of health care delivered to children in emergency departments throughout the United States through a new, three-year $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

“We need good measures of emergency care, and of emergency room care for children in particular,” said James Marcin, professor of pediatric critical care medicine at the UC Davis School of Medicine and the co-principal investigator for the study. “While some quality instruments have been developed for pediatric emergency care, few have been tested or applied as we’re proposing on such a large scale.”

The study, funded through the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, will examine the effectiveness of the Pediatric Emergency Department Quality Assessment Tool, developed at UC Davis and used to successfully identify factors associated with quality of care in a small group of rural Northern California emergency departments with very sick pediatric patients.

The study will expand the research to include more than 600 diverse pediatric patients in 12 emergency departments in the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN), the only federally funded pediatric emergency care research network in the U.S.

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