How Georgia’s hospitals are adapting to treat their youngest patients

Credit: Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

Credit: Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

Several Georgia hospitals that recently received the highest designations for neonatal intensive care or pediatric emergency readiness, following extensive review by external surveyors, highlight renewed efforts in the state to treat its youngest patients.

Georgia consistently has a higher rate of premature births, maternal and infant mortality than the national average, earning an F on the March of Dimes most recent annual report card. The most recent designations may help to reduce those rates, ensuring that more hospitals throughout the state can provide specialized care closer to home, Poindexter explained.

Ready for pediatric emergencies

In the past year, the Georgia Department of Public Health has encouraged hospitals to meet national standards through pediatric training, equipment and policies. The effort is especially important because more than 80% of children requiring emergency care first seek treatment in community emergency departments, according to the Georgia DPH.

Georgia’s voluntary Pediatric Readiness Centers program, which is based on the National Pediatric Readiness Project, aims to strengthen emergency care for children. High pediatric readiness can lower death rates for ill and injured children as much as 76%, the national program reports.

The Georgia program was created to increase pediatric readiness in rural areas of the state, according to Nancy Nydam Shirek, spokesperson for the Georgia DPH. The entire spectrum of emergency services is provided to children and adolescents as well as adults, states the Georgia DPH website.

Credit: Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

Credit: Children's Healthcare of Atlanta

So far, 10 medical centers in Georgia — or about 30% of emergency departments in the state — have earned pediatric readiness designations, including Northeast Georgia Medical Center which has two in rural areas and others moving through the application process.

“We realized that our community members were bypassing us and driving all the way to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta,” said Walt Wiley, executive director of Emergency, Trauma, Observation and Emergency Medical Services.

Northeast Georgia Medical Center was the first in the state to achieve the readiness designation last year at all of its hospitals, with its main hospital in Gainesville earning a Level II and its other four hospitals a Level III.

Last month, Children’s earned pediatric readiness center designations across its three hospitals — with Scottish Rite and Arthur M. Blank hospitals earning the highest level of readiness, Level I, and Hughes Spalding Hospital designated the next highest level, Level II.

The designation focuses on advanced pediatric training for emergency staff, as well as ensuring hospitals have the right medical supplies and protocols to stabilize children before transfer if higher-level specialty care is needed.

“So it’s really about taking your standard emergency departments that we have across the state of Georgia and raising the bar,” Wiley said.

Intensive care for newborns

In recent years, the Georgia DPH also has been encouraging neonatal intensive care units to voluntarily seek verification of designated levels of NICU care. Using standards set by the American Academy of Pediatrics, hospitals can apply for the extensive verification process involving site visits, interviews with staff and chart reviews, Poindexter explained.

“It’s really to elevate the level of care that we’re providing and giving hospitals the opportunity to say: ‘OK, here’s what we’re doing well and here are the areas where there might be some opportunities for growth and improvement,” she said.

There are nine designated neonatal centers in Georgia. As opposed to pediatric readiness centers, neonatal centers are ranked in reverse order with the highest rank set at Level IV.

“Right now, there are certain states that have mandated that their hospitals go through the leveling of care with the American Academy of Pediatrics,” Dr. Brad Buckler, neonatal medical director at Memorial Health’s Dwaine and Cynthia Willet Children’s Hospital, said. The verification process is voluntary in Georgia, but Memorial Health decided it was worth the effort, he said.

“It’s proof to our surrounding community and to the state of Georgia that we are ahead of the game in terms of meeting the criteria that we eventually know are going to become a requirement.”

Poindexter said that encouraging verification of levels of care and advancing pediatric readiness is the key to reducing maternal, infant and pediatric deaths and health complications.

“By having everybody universally buy into these standards, my hope is that the process will raise the bar for the care that mothers and babies in Georgia can receive, and that’s what our state so desperately needs.”

Roni Robbins has been a journalist for nearly four decades. This is her second stint as a freelance reporter for the AJC. She also freelances for Medscape, where she was an editor. Her writing has appeared in WebMD, HuffPost, Forbes, the New York Daily News, BioPharma Dive, MNN, Adweek, Healthline and others. She’s also the author of the award-winning novel, “Hands of Gold: One Man’s Quest to Find the Silver Lining in Misfortune.”