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3/12/15 news article

Dayton Children’s Hospital offers safety tips for patient families during National Patient Safety Awareness Week

hospital safety

Dayton Children’s Hospital is joining forces with children’s hospitals around the country during National Patient Safety Awareness Week to remind parents how critical their role is in making hospital stays as safe as possible for their children.

Dayton Children’s Hospital is part of a national learning network – Children’s Hospitals’ Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS). SPS, originally funded in part by the federal Partnership for Patients program, is a collaboration of 80+ children’s hospitals nationwide working to achieve specific goals to reduce harm in pediatric hospitals across the country through the transparent sharing of data, successes, and learnings.

Having already saved approximately 2,500 children from harm and prevented an estimate of over $60 million in costs from the healthcare system with their collaboration, SPS hospitals are working to reduce certain hospital-acquired conditions by 40 percent, reduce readmissions by 10 percent and reduced serious safety events by 25 percent. SPS has teamed with the Children’s Hospital Association to offer safety tips for patient families.

“We are taking steps to ensure that we provide the safest possible care in children’s hospitals, but there are also things that families and patients can do to be part of these efforts. The family is the most critical part of a patient’s caregiving team – so we are encouraging our patients and their families to follow some simple, yet potentially life-saving, tips during National Patient Safety Awareness Week and every day that they visit a children’s hospital,” said Adam Mezoff, MD, CPE, AGAF, vice president of medical affairs and chief medical officer at Dayton Children’s.

Tips for patient families include the following:

be a patient advocate for your child.

Don’t be shy. Ask questions about your child’s care, raise safety concerns you have or ask the caregiver to double check their chart before they act. Write down your questions to make sure the caregiver addresses them. You might say, “Excuse me; I have a few questions before you start treatment, would you mind answering them, please?”

you know your child best.

Share unique things about your child with caregivers that may be important for your child’s overall care (i.e. they have a fear of animals or only like to eat food cut in small pieces).

wash.

Wash your hands and your child’s hands when entering and leaving the hospital, your patient room, the bathroom and any treatment rooms (such as x-ray); and be sure to wash if you have handled any soiled material.

ask if your care givers have washed their hands.

Since you are part of your child’s health care team, do not be afraid to remind doctors and nurses about washing their hands before working with you—even if they are wearing gloves. You might say, “Excuse me; I didn’t see you wash your hands. I’d like to be sure everyone’s hands are clean. Please wash them before caring for my child.”

stay clean and dry.

If your child has an intravenous catheter or a wound, keep the skin around the dressing clean and dry, and let your caregiver know if the dressing gets wet or loose.

watch for red or irritated skin.

If you notice any new redness or irritation on your child’s skin, notify your child’s caregivers. Ask what steps can be taken to prevent harm to the skin.

know the meds.

Ask for the names of the medications your child is receiving in the hospital and how they are expected to help your child. Caregivers will check your child’s identification band before giving a medication to make certain the correct medication is being given. If you don’t see this, ask staff to double check that the medication is for your child. You might say, “Excuse me, that medication is not familiar to me. Can you please double check it against my child’s chart?”

be prepared when going home.

When your child is ready to go home from the hospital, make certain you know what medications and/or treatments your child will need once home. Ask what you should watch for that will require a call to your child’s doctor and which doctor to call if questions come up. Also, ask when your child will need to follow up with a physician appointment.

More information about SPS is available at www.solutionsforpatientsafety.org. More information about the Children’s Hospital Association is available at www.childrenshospitals.net.

For more information, contact:

Stacy Porter

Communications specialist

Phone: 937-641-3666

porters@childrensdayton.org