BRIDGEPORT, W. Va. — A program is pushing to make sure every hospital emergency department in the state is prepared to manage medical and trauma pediatric emergencies.
The West Virginia Always Ready for Kids (ARK) Project aims to create an effective and sustainable method to ensure that children who need treatment for life threatening illnesses or injuries have access to appropriate facilities, equipment and trained personnel.
“We know that care doesn’t end when the ambulance arrives or the helicopter lands,” Vicki Hildreth, Emergency Medical Services for Children Coordinator with the state DHHR said. “This is just designed to bridge any gaps in the treatment of children.”
The project also helps met Performance Measures 74 and 75 of the Federal Emergency Medical Services for Children Program Grant, which is designed to ensure that a significant number of the state’s patients regardless of where they live, attend school, or travel, receive appropriate care in a health emergency.
“Five percent of our runs that we have in this state on the EMS side are the pediatric patient. It may sound like a small number, but when you multiply it out time the number of patients we see a year, that’s actually a fairly large number,” Hildreth said. “I like to say that we’re not just saving a child’s life, we’re saving a family.”
Recently, United Hospital Center in Bridgeport met –or exceeded– the set Performance Standards and became one of the seven ARK-recognized facilities.
Dr. Thomas Marshall, Medical Director for UHC’s Emergency Department said the emergency physicians and nurses put in the extra effort to achieve the recognition.
“Our nursing staff has to go though specialized pediatric courses. We have to make sure that we have certain equipment like the special small IVs or small breathing tubes for children and infants. Just to make sure that all that’s there we go through an audit to make sure that we have all the equipment we need to have.”
Representatives with UHC hope becoming an ARK recognized facility will increase the public’s confidence in the ability to handle emergency pediatric patients and provide recognition to the abilities of the staff.
“It validates that the training and preparation that we do when we come to work everyday is correct and that we’re always ready to take care of the kids of the state of West Virginia,” Marshall said.
Both Hildreth and Marshall said they hope the remainder of the 51 total acute care facilities in the state soon become recognized by the ARK Project.
More information on the initiative can be found at wvoems.org.