Pediatric readiness legislation heads to House floor

Florida hospitals honor Florida Childhood Cancer month.

The House Health and Human Services Committee voted unanimously to advance a measure that seeks to improve pediatric readiness in hospital emergency departments. Its next stop is the House floor.

Punta Gorda Republican Rep. Vanessa Oliver presented the bill (HB 1119) and detailed how hospitals across Florida aren’t properly equipped to handle specific treatment for children.

“This bill addresses the lack of pediatric readiness in our hospital emergency departments,” Oliver said. “Current Florida law has no specific standards of care for treating children in hospital emergency departments. While children’s hospitals are designed, staffed, and supplied to take critically ill and injured children, more than 82% of children who need emergency care, are treated in general hospital emergency departments, which primarily treat adults and may not be prepared to treat children because of low pediatric volume.”

Oliver added, “This lack of preparedness can result in the loss of precious young lives. Reseach shows that 1440 lives could have been saved between 2012 and 2017 if those children had received care in emergency departments with high levels of pediatric readiness.”

Oliver further detailed how the bill would bolster preparedness, including the implementation of evidence-based policies.

“HB 1119 addresses this lack of pediatric readiness in our emergency departments by doing five things,” Oliver said. “First, it requires all hospitals with emergency departments to have evidence-based policies and procedures for pediatric emergency care, related to triage, measuring and recording vital signs, weighing and recording weights in kilograms, calculating medication dosages and using pediatric instruments.”

Emergency departments would also be required to conduct training, designate a care coordinator, conduct a national assessment, and would further require the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) to publish hospital scores.

Boca Raton Democratic Rep. Kelly Skidmore asked if there were specific hospitals in specific areas that were not prepared, or if it was in all hospitals in Florida.

In response, Oliver said the biggest problem is emergency departments not having suitable equipment to properly monitor children who come through the door.

“Our hospital emergency departments, in general, if you have a sick child, that’s where you should go,” Oliver said. “You should take that child to an emergency department. Most physicians and nurses have training in pediatrics. With that being said, ACHA has not established any policies that require these hospitals to have pediatric instruments.”

Oliver said ill-equipped emergency departments pose a risk of improper care for young patients, who may be sent home without treatment if medical staff lacks experience working with children.

“So, there have been instances where children have come to emergency departments, require, say a tracheotomy, and they haven’t had the correct size trach to treat the child,” Oliver said. “Or perhaps that physician or nurse is not used to seeing pediatric patients, so they might now understand that a child’s stomachache, is, rather than constipation, is actually a telescoping of the bowels that can form into scepsis and send that child home without treatment.”