Physician-Patient Alliance Urges Nation's Hospitals: 'Keep It On' to Ensure Safe Monitoring of Children after Surgery
CHICAGO, Sept. 25, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Prompted by a mother whose one-year-old son died tragically after a successful bone marrow transplant procedure, the Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety today encouraged hospitals across the nation to join "Keep It On" -- a campaign aimed at protecting the lives and safety of children who are monitored with pediatric pulse oximetry following surgery.
To help hospitals join the campaign, the Physician-Patient Alliance today posted an article, "Keep It On" Campaign: 8 Tips for Ensuring Children are Monitored Safely, on its website. Developed by Physician-Patient Alliance Clinical Nurse Consultant Lynn Razzano, RN, MSN, ONCC, the article offers guidance to nurses and clinicians about how to correctly use pediatric pulse oximetry when monitoring children receiving post-surgical opioids. Though opioids are widely prescribed to patients of all ages to help them manage their pain after surgery, opioid over-sedation can lead to life-threatening respiratory failure and other serious adverse events.
As it describes in greater detail online, the article advises caregivers to:
- Ensure that adequate supplies of monitoring equipment are on hand
- Securely attach the monitor to the child
- Not mute or stop monitoring for any reason
- Routinely check alarm parameters
- Ensure – and double-check – proper dosage
- Have Narcan in the patient's room
- Confirm that nursing education and competencies are current
- Post and follow safe practices
"In offering these tips, it is our sincerest hope that hospitals will be better able to prevent an untimely adverse event or a death that might otherwise had been avoided, like that of the one-year old baby boy whose mother inspired the 'Keep It On' campaign," Ms. Razzano said. "He was battling leukemia, and there were other issues involved with his care. But while he was receiving opioids after a successful bone marrow transplant, his nurses had difficulty keeping the oximeter in place, which caused the monitor to false alarm frequently and the alarms to be turned down."
Physician-Patient Alliance Founder and Executive Director Michael Wong, JD, concurred with Ms. Razzano, and added "Though opioid-induced respiratory failure and other adverse events are risks for any patients following surgery, it really hits home when children suffer these tragic, yet ultimately preventable, outcomes. That's why we encourage hospitals and healthcare institutions throughout America to embrace the 'Keep It On' campaign."
About Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety
Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety is a non-profit 501(c)(3) whose mission is to promote safer clinical practices and standards for patients through collaboration among healthcare experts, professionals, scientific researchers, and others, in order to improve health care delivery. For more information, please go to www.ppahs.org.
Additional Resources
Click here to view the WDNU-TV story, "Promise to Amanda: 4 year anniversary of Granger teen's death in hospital"
Click here to visit the Promise to Amanda Foundation website
Click here to visit the PPAHS website
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SOURCE Physician-Patient Alliance for Health & Safety
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