'Mock' drills boost child resuscitation skills in 'failing' adult emerg...(tical alternate route for delivering flu...),Health

In the current study, the team made surprise visits to18 ERs six months later and found that scores on 37 of the 44 tasks improved, and scores on 11 of the most important ones, such as accessing circulation through the bone or performing head examinations, improved significantly.

For example, following the refresher, the number of ERs properly estimating a childs weight nearly doubled; the number of ERs correctly assessing consciousness in a child nearly quadrupled; twice as many ER teams properly started an IV through the bone; more than twice as many ordered the correct antiseizure medications; and more than twice as many correctly prepared a child for transport to CT scanners or operating rooms, a critical time when many problems can occur.

Our findings would seem to offer a practical recipe for running a quick diagnostic test of ER skills related to resuscitating children from catastrophe and improving them, Hunt says.

In situ, or on-location, disaster simulations are already a monthly happening at Hopkins Childrens, where trauma teams rate their own performance and diagnose problems in each other.

Researchers note that some tasks on their list of 44 still need improvement, including assessing for neurological and spine injuries, delivering proper weight-based and timely doses of dextrose to stop life-threatening drops in blood sugar and correctly administering IV fluids. Failures on these tasks can also have catastrophic results, the investigators say, and more research is needed to understand why staff continued to perform poorly. The researchers caution that failures during mock drills do not necessarily reflect performance during a genuine emergency, when trauma teams experience adrenaline surge and ultra-sharp focus on the patient, and actual patients provide constant feedback to the teams actions,
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