The Collaborative in Action

Our partnering hospitals made a commitment to provide the highest possible level of pediatric trauma care in their respective communities and have aligned alongside Cincinnati Children’s with the intent to continuously improve upon the quality and safety of care provided to their injured pediatric patients.

Collaborative partners have successfully implemented a range of improvement initiatives including:

• image / radiation reduction
• cervical spine clearance
• non-accidental trauma evaluation process
• safe transport checklists for children
• trauma team notification system to include pediatric critical care physician
• pediatric trauma outreach / follow up, and solid organ management

Cincinnati Children’s has assisted with the verification process at three PTTC hospitals: 

• St. Mary’s Hospital in Evansville, IN
• Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne, IN
• Sanford Hospital in Fargo, ND
• All had the PTTC listed as a key strength of their program

Human Patient Simulator training provided to partners

Our partnering facilities come to Cincinnati Children’s to train with our hands-on high fidelity Human Patient Simulator in order to enhance their efficiency, communication, and confidence during pediatric trauma resuscitation. Utilizing real trauma case based scenarios from their respective facilities, a multidisciplinary team comprised of trauma surgeons, emergency medicine physicians, staff nurses, respiratory therapists and other ancillary personnel actively work through each scenario as they would in real-life resuscitation. Upon completion, a formal debriefing is held where positive, constructive performance improvement feedback is provided and input is encouraged from all team members involved

Collaboration with Copernicus Hospital in Gdansk, Poland

 In 2017, a team from Gdansk, Poland came to Cincinnati Children’s to understand what is necessary to develop a pediatric trauma system. Currently in Poland, there is no organized pediatric trauma system. During this week-long visit that included simulation training, presentations and shadowing, the Copernicus team identified steps to develop their trauma program. Since that visit, with support from the PTTC, Copernicus has implemented the following to improve their pediatric trauma program: 

• Engaged local EMS to improve communication, evaluation and triage of injured children
• Developed EYE AID, a process to improve the ability to triage ill patients presenting to the Emergency Department
• Defined roles and responsibilities of staff responding to the trauma bay
• Developed a simple data collection system 
• Developed a multidisciplinary group to review trauma cases and identify opportunities for improvement 
• Developed standardized protocols for the care of the pediatric trauma patient