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Tips for keeping your youngest patients safe

Staff Development Weekly: Insight on Evidence-Based Practice in Education, January 3, 2008

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At Brownwood (TX) Regional Medical Center, staff members use new, cost-effective techniques to help keep their smallest patients safe. The facility's pediatric security process, updated in September 2007, was enhanced after an infant was abducted from another Texas hospital. The facility revamped its existing pediatric security process for the medical-surgical unit. One component involves a special ID system for patients at a higher risk for abduction. This process involves special identification of at-risk pediatric patients by placing a standard cartoon picture on the patient's door frame and chart. Once these patients are identified, additional precautions are initiated. They include:

• Keeping the door to the child's room closed at all times so that would-be visitors don't have visual contact
• Keeping charts and any identifying information out of sight of visitors at the nurses' station
• Maintaining a focus on heightened awareness among the hospital staff members

To get more information, go to Briefings on Patient Safety (BOPS). For the cost of just three stories, you can get the entire January issue of BOPS. Click here to choose between the PDF and HTML versions for just $30. Subscribers to the online version of BOPS have free access to this article. Subscribers to the print newsletter can find this article in their January issue.

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