Advancing emergency care for kids

Most children with isolated skull fractures may not need to stay in the hospital, which finding has the potential to save the health care system millions of dollars a year (‘Isolated Skull Fractures: Trends in Management in U.S. Pediatric Emergency Departments’). In addition, a new device more accurately estimates children’s weights, leading to more precise drug dosing in the ER (‘Evaluation of the Mercy TAPE: Performance Against the Standard for Pediatric Weight Estimation’). Two studies showcase some of the work emergency physicians are doing to improve care for children in the nation’s emergency departments.
One study posits that most children who are hospitalised with isolated skull fractures may instead be discharged home safely from the ER. Researchers found that of children hospitalised with isolated skull fractures between 2005 and 2011, 85 percent were discharged within 1 day and 95 percent were discharged within 2 days. A very small number