Research-Backed Network Builds Safety Net for Kids
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Summary
Seattle Children’s is part of the Pediatric Pandemic Network, a national network of pediatric healthcare leaders developing solutions that protect children during pandemics, emergencies and disasters. Today, that work is already improving care — from emergency training to telehealth — for kids in Washington and beyond.
Disasters can take many shapes: wildfires, school shootings, storms, earthquakes and pandemics. They often severely impact the people living through them, and the effects can be long lasting.
Kids who live through disasters are at higher risk than adults to experience negative consequences.
Yet emergency systems aren’t always designed with kids in mind. Fewer than half of all hospitals in the U.S. include the needs of children in their disaster plans. Around 80% of children experiencing emergencies receive care at community hospitals that primarily serve adults and may be less equipped to care for kids.
That helps explain why, in 2022, Seattle Children’s joined a team of leading children’s hospitals working to help protect kids during emergencies and disasters. With a $29 million grant from the Health Resources and Service Administration, the team formed the Pediatric Pandemic Network (PPN).
“The PPN focuses on implementation science, which means putting research insights into action,” said Danielle Zerr, MD, MPH, Professor and Division Head of Pediatric Infectious Disease. “For example, less about demonstrating that vaccines work, and more designing systems that help more children get vaccinated during an epidemic of vaccine-preventable disease.”
The program has a number of goals, including helping healthcare systems prepare for pediatric emergencies, improving telehealth systems and creating and sharing research-informed resources to respond to disasters or health threats.
“Part of our job was to create a blueprint for how to achieve those goals across our region,” said Amanda Adler, manager of the PPN at Seattle Children’s. “And now we’re starting to see this work make an impact.”
Partnering With Community Hospitals to Improve Pediatric Care
One key way to make sure kids’ needs are met during emergencies is to make sure emergency departments are prepared to care for kids. That’s why PPN created the Children’s Pediatric Readiness team. The team partners with local hospitals to identify how they might strengthen their pediatric care. The team then uses medical simulations using lifelike training mannequins, practicing scenarios for common pediatric emergencies including bronchiolitis, anaphylaxis and diabetic ketoacidosis. Studies have shown that more prepared emergency departments are associated with up to a 76% reduction in mortality among ill children.
“The team has traveled thousands of miles across Washington and has received overwhelmingly positive feedback,” Adler said. “Many of these hospitals are critical access hospitals, meaning they often serve as the source of medical care for an entire county.”
For kids and families, this can mean higher quality and expert care, closer to home.
Predicting and Responding to Illnesses That Affect Kids
Much of Dr. Zerr’s work with PPN focuses on identifying gaps in pediatric care and sharing information about how to fill those gaps with hospitals across the country. For example, when measles cases started increasing, many pediatric providers had never seen a measles rash. So the PPN’s Infectious Diseases Domain (led by Dr. Zerr and physicians from Lurie Children’s and the University of California, San Francisco) developed educational materials and held webinars about measles care for pediatric primary, urgent and emergency care providers.
“Some of our work is responding to current needs and some of it is anticipating what those needs might be in the future,” Dr. Zerr said. “For example, with climate change, we’re seeing more mosquito-borne illnesses in the United States. So we’re publishing materials for providers and families in the spring about recognizing, treating, and preventing disease like malaria and dengue.”
The PPN’s Infectious Disease Domain also works to strengthen the preparedness of pediatric hospitals to safely care for children’ with “special pathogens” like Ebola virus or other infectious agents with high morbidity and mortality.
Improving Access to Care via Telehealth
Improving telehealth capabilities is a key focus of the PPN, helping meet kids and families’ needs by making it easier to access specialized care. One key advance is work from Ian Kodish, MD, PhD, creating a telehealth psychiatry toolkit to help community hospitals deliver urgent mental health consultations.
“Many hospitals struggle to support kids who are having mental health emergencies or urgent needs,” Dr. Zerr said. “This is a key way to help hospitals that feel like they don’t have the resources to support kids’ mental health needs.”
Another important advance in telehealth: Offering specialized neonatal and pediatric care via telemedicine. Led by Rachel Umoren, MD, MS, this work provides timely access to specialized care for health facilities in rural areas, improving patient outcomes and saving lives. It also helps ensure these services are already in place and ready to scale during emergencies or sudden increases in the number of patients needing care.
Moving forward, the team aims to expand its reach to more rural communities in Washington as well as Idaho, Oregon and Alaska — helping ensure more children have access to specialized care and support when emergencies happen.