8/9/23 Ripon Toddler Benefits from SSM Health Ripon Community Hospital ED Advanced Pediatric Efforts
9 August 2023 News
For the Goeldi family, a November Saturday evening in their Ripon home was like any other. It was bedtime, and their son, Vincent, who was two years old at the time went to bed for a restful night of sleep.
“Vincent was running and playing before bed just like most evenings,” according to his mom, Caitlin. “There was nothing out of the ordinary.”
That carefree evening quickly changed when Vincent woke up unexpectedly in the middle of the night with a fever, wheezing, and having difficulty breathing. He later fell asleep on the couch as mom held him. By 4 am, he was awake again and his breathing had worsened.
At that time, Vincent’s dad, Nick, brought him to the SSM Health Ripon Community Hospital Emergency Department (ED).
Upon his arrival, Vincent was immediately taken to an exam room where the team sprang into quick action. “They took Vincent back for treatment, and they did a great job keeping me calm and updated,” Nick recalls. “I knew from the start that they were going to start Vincent on oxygen. While you could tell he was not comfortable with the oxygen mask, he was too weak to try removing it.”
Vincent was sedated and due to his breathing difficulties, the ED team intubated the child. “It was chaotic at the time, but I feel comfortable with the providers who were caring for him – that they were knowledgeable and very responsive,” according to Nick.
Following advanced care at Children’s Wisconsin, Vincent is doing very well. He was diagnosed with croup and parainfluenza. “Other than having his adenoids removed in April, Vincent has experienced no severe health issues since that time, other than seasonal colds you would expect,” Caitlin shares.
“We’re so glad that the Ripon Community Hospital team was able to take the actions they did, and it was a smooth transition,” Nick says. “When we went to the hospital, we weren’t expecting what was before us, but the outcome was well done with everyone being on the same page, and all efforts were very efficient.”
SSM Health Ripon Community Hospital and 11 other EDs have spent the last year participating in the Wisconsin Pediatric Readiness Program for Community Emergency Departments (Pediatric Readiness Program), led by Wisconsin Emergency Medical Services for Children (WI EMSC). This program enhances access to quality, evidence-based pediatric emergency care, particularly in Wisconsin’s rural areas.
According to the Wisconsin Office of Rural Health’s classification, nearly half of Wisconsin’s EDs are located in counties designated as rural and often called community EDs. Because they are the closest place to seek emergency care, community EDs must be prepared to treat people of all ages, from infants to elderly patients. In 2021, these EDs experienced more than 269,000 pediatric visits, accounting for nearly 80% of all pediatric visits in Wisconsin that year. However, community EDs are typically smaller and may not be optimally resourced to treat children.
“Like many smaller hospitals, it’s up to our nursing staff to be able to handle everything going on with our ED patients at all times,” according to Desiree Stensrud, Ripon Community Hospital inpatient nursing supervisor. “Providing education around pediatric care gives our department’s nurses a better opportunity for success.
“We recognized we had areas for improvement and wanted to address them so we could provide better care for our community,” Stensrud adds. “Among the things we put in place were a nurse pediatric emergency care coordinator to oversee our ED’s pediatric-focused efforts and education, weighing all pediatric patients in kilograms so we no longer have to make conversions for medication dosing and equipment sizes, and we increased our stock of pediatric-specific respiratory supplies.”
Thanks to these efforts, the Ripon team was able to stabilize Vincent and successfully transition care to a transport team for transfer to a larger facility.
“The transporting agency’s crew assured our staff we did a great job providing initial care and stabilizing the patient,” Stensrud says. “While transferring the child to the new agency’s machines, we readily provided their team with resources as needed. Our participation in the Pediatric Readiness Program and building up our pediatric supplies were the reason we could assist the transporting agency’s team during handoff of care.”
Stensrud has no doubt that SSM Health Ripon Community Hospital’s involvement in the Pediatric Readiness Program played a major role in the team’s ability to provide effective care to the young patient.
“If it wasn’t for the program, pediatric supplies would have never been placed in a centralized location, which would have delayed care and increased the team’s stress. The biggest difference for us was being prepared; we could pull together as a team to get the patient the care he needed during an emergency.”
Share |