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By: Claudia King
Date Posted: 1/26/2010
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To E.R. or Not To E.R. ...
All parents know the terrible feeling of having a sick child and not knowing how to help him feel better. Many times, not knowing what else to do, those parents end up in a hospital emergency room.
Nonurgent conditions account for 58-82 percent of pediatric emergency room visits, according to a report in the November-December 2008 issue of the journal Ambulatory Pediatrics. The study said parents cited several different reasons for skipping their primary-care doctors and going straight to the E.R., including long appointment waits, quality of care and expertise with children. But there’s a downside to bringing nonurgent cases to a hospital emergency room: It costs more and causes long wait times, and over-use of antibiotics could reduce kids&r
squo; ability to fight off illnesses on their own. But Dr. Todd A. Wolf, an E.R. doctor at Cook Children’s in Fort Worth, says the influx of nonurgent pediatric cases in the E.R. will not compromise the quality of care.
“Nine times out of 10, it’s going to be just a virus or a cold,” he says. “But our job is to recognize the kids who have more than simply a cold.”
Wolf urges parents to call their regular pediatrician or nurse practitioner for advice before going to the emergency room, even late at night. “Call the people who know them the best. A lot of problems patients experience can successfully be managed over the phone until the child can be seen by their primary care physician,” he says.
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