Modern Paediatric Emergency Department: Potential Improvements in Light of New Evidence

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Authors

KULA Roman POPELA Stanislav KLUČKA Jozef CHARWATOVA Daniela DJAKOW Jana ŠTOURAČ Petr

Year of publication 2023
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Children-Basel
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Medicine

Citation
Web https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/10/4/741
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/children10040741
Keywords emergency; triage; guidelines; checklist; ultrasound
Description The increasing attendance of paediatric emergency departments becomes a serious health issue. To reduce an elevated burden of medical errors, inevitably caused by high level of stress exerted on emergency physicians, we propose potential areas for improvement in regular paediatric emergency departments. In effort to guarantee demanded quality of care to all incoming patients, the workflow in paediatric emergency departments should be sufficiently optimized. The key component remains implementing one of the validated paediatric triage systems upon patient's arrival at emergency department and fast-tracking patients with low level of risk according to the triage system. To ensure the patient's safety, emergency physicians should follow issued guidelines. Cognitive aids, such as well-designed checklists, posters or flow charts, generally improve physicians' adherence to guidelines and should be therefore available in every paediatric emergency department. To sharpen diagnostic accuracy, the use of ultrasound in paediatric emergency department, according to ultrasound protocols, should be targeted to answer specific clinical questions. Combining all mentioned improvements might reduce number of errors linked with overcrowding. The review serves not only as a blueprint for modernizing paediatric emergency departments, but also as a bin of useful literature which can be suitable in the paediatric emergency field.
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