If you see pediatric patients, you will experience pediatric office emergencies. This post has suggestions for resources for dealing with pediatric office emergencies.
First, the entire medical staff need to be trained – Basic Life Support (BLS) with AED Training for all staff. Physicians and nurses should consider maintaining certfication in Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) and Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS). ACLS certification should be considered since many pediatric offices see patients aged up to twenty one years.
Second, the office needs to have the proper emergency supplies, medications, and an Automatic External Defibrillator. Following the video embedded below, I have included equipment and medications recommendations from Reference (1) of the American Academy of Pediatrics. And following the AAP suggestions are suggestions for equipment and medication recommendations from Reference (2) of the Canadian Paediatric Society.
The American and Canadian recommendations differ in some details as do other emergency supply lists in articles not sited. Each physician will decide what is appropriate in his or her office setting.
Third, the office should consider having mock emergency drills – both scheduled and unscheduled.
All three of these issues are addressed in References (1) and (2) and the supplies each article recommends are incorporated in this post after the video.
A great way to get started is to watch the video below from Is your office ready for a medical emergency? The link is to the home page of officeemergencies.ca.
Below are Tables 1 and 2 from the AAP article, Reference (1).
Below are Tables 1 through 4 from the Canadian Paediatric Society Reference (2)
(1) Preparation for Emergencies in the Offices of Pediatricians and Pediatric Primary Care Providers [Medline Abstract] [Full Text HTML] [Full Text PDF]. Pediatrics July 2007, VOLUME 120 / ISSUE 1
(2) Guidelines for paediatric emergency equipment and supplies for a physician’s office [PubMed Citation] [Full Text HTML] [Full Text PDF]
Posted: Aug 1 2009 Reaffirmed: Feb 1 2014. Paediatr Child Health. 2009 Jul;14(6):402-4
(3) Are you ready for an office code blue? : online video to prepare for office emergencies. [Pubmed Abstract] [Full Text HTML] [Full Text PDF]. Can Fam Physician. 2015 Jan;61(1):e9-16.
(4) Medical Emergency Preparedness in Office Practice [PubMed Abstract] [Full Text HTML] [Full Text PDF]. Am Fam Physician. 2007 Jun 1;75(11):1679-1684.
