Pediatric shock carries a high morbidity and mortality, making early recognition key. Recently, pediatric critical care and resuscitation has been the focus of emergency department care improvement.

In the acute care setting, clinicians may be confronted with a child who has had a nonoccupational blood and/or body fluid exposure. Being prepared with a focused approach and the ability to identify the multiple factors that may adjust the risk of contracting bloodborne pathogens is valuable in such exposures. The authors provide a focused approach to nonoccupational blood and/or body fluid exposure, as well as a discussion of each of the bloodborne pathogens.

By performing their job well, registrars reduce worries for families — and bad debt for the hospital. Some patient access employees share how they do it.

Before pediatric psychiatric patients are discharged from the ED, carefully document the visit and create a follow-up plan with a primary care physician or mental health professional. For patients presenting with suicidal ideation, a social worker or mental health clinician should develop a safety plan.

Pediatric ED leaders interested in implementing a screening protocol to boost flu vaccination rates in children should rely on quality improvement principles.

Frustrated with low vaccination rates, the ED at Children’s Wisconsin in Milwaukee implemented a screening protocol to offer the flu vaccine to every eligible child who presents for care. Now in its third year, the nurse-driven intervention has proven successful, with leaders working to expand the approach ahead of an expected COVID-19 vaccine.

Children with disabilities can be organ donors, contributing to the supply. Excluding these patients as organ recipients would not be fair. A new policy statement does not consider intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) completely irrelevant, but the authors do not consider IDD to be dispositive for listing decisions either.