Mar 8
2019
New Technology In Hospitals Helping to Keep Kids Healthy and Healed
By Brooke Faulkner, freelance writer; @faulknercreek.
Being rushed to the hospital is a traumatic event in a child’s life, yet a staggering 25.5 million children are taken to the emergency room each year. The reasons for these ER trips range from poisonings and infections to mental health conditions and diabetes, plus a host of terrifying injuries and baffling disorders. In addition to emergencies, there are children who make frequent visits to hospitals or stay there for weeks on end to receive ongoing treatment for chronic conditions.
Children today are much more tech-savvy than in the past — they’re getting smartphones before their age hits double digits. Many hospital administrators take tech trends into consideration in order to make the overall experience better for patients and their families. Even the processes and workflows that hospital staff follow now stress the patients’ experience. Technology is also helping doctors and surgeons perform their jobs more efficiently and safely while offering quality healthcare to more families than before.
Faster care for injuries
The last thing you expect when heading to a birthday party is leaving with your child in an ambulance. Bounce houses and similar structures are responsible for a number of injuries, and they have been for a long time. Injuries can happen at any time, and hospital staff needs to be prepared to handle them to ensure optimal health outcomes.
In more dire circumstances, faster care is necessary to save the lives of those injured. In the wake of natural disasters, as local leaders scramble to help their respective communities find stability, faster healthcare processes are required to protect the lives of those affected.
Some hospitals are using technology that tells patients the wait times at nearby emergency rooms. This can help parents decide where to take their child for the fastest attention possible. If there’s no hospital that can treat an injury at the moment, the parent can opt to visit their primary doctor or another emergency clinic.