Hospital earns WDH peds rating

Alexis Barker
NLJ News Editor
 
Weston County Health Services is the third Wyoming facility to be recognized as a pediatric receiving facility by the Wyoming Department of Health’s Emergency Medical Services for Children and Wyoming Hospital Preparedness program, joining Campbell County Memorial Hospital and Community Hospital in Torrington. 
According to a press release dated July 2, the Wyoming Pediatric Recognition Program is an evidence-based approach to ensuring that minimum services, equipment, disaster preparedness and staff competencies are in place in a facility that may treat an acutely injured or ill child in the
state. The program is funded by a Health Resources and Services Administration state partnership grant and is completely voluntary. 
 “The system is designed to not be just another set of boxes to check for a facility. It is based on the National Pediatric Readiness Project, a scholarly long-term study, that has been running now for over thirty years,” said Brandon Kelley,  supervisor with the Office of Emergency Medical Services through the Public Health Division. “This base evidence shows a direct correlation between facilities, big and small, having the proper equipment, regular and recurring training, advocacy, and certain policies and procedures; with improved mortality, morbidity, and outcomes of the pediatric population they serve.”
According to the National Pediatric Readiness Project website, the program is a multi-phase quality improvement initiative to ensure that all emergency departments have the essential guidelines and resources in place to provide effective emergency care to children.
“The program required us to meet specific guidelines in regards to readiness to provide the best service to children that are in a trauma situation,” said Maureen Cadwell, facility CEO. “In a rural facility, this is extremely important for services in our emergency department and shows the community that we are ready.” 
In order to achieve the recognition, Tamie Wesley, the trauma program coordinator in Weston County, spent countless hours working on developing policies and procedures specific to pediatrics. She also took classes to become an instructor for the Pediatric Advance Life Support and Emergency Nursing Pediatric Course so that nursing staff at the facility could become certified in both areas. 
“The team at Weston County Health Services worked hard to organize what they do every day for their community into one place,” Kelley said. “They committed to meeting the
measures in the program, trained, organized and closed every gap we found in the process, not because they had to but because they saw the benefit and decided to accept nothing less.” 
While previous scores on the assessment are not known, Kelley said that scores at the facility have drastically improved and that Wyoming in general has always struggled when it comes to national measurement surveys, not because there is necessarily something missing but because of the small population and limited capabilities of rural facilities. 
“We built this program to help solve that issue. By achieving this step in the Wyoming system, a facility can count on a score of at least 88/100. To put that into perspective, Wyoming’s score last measurement cycle in 2013 was a 59,” Kelley said. “Compared to the rest of the country, we were 10 points lower on average.”
“If each of the hospitals in Wyoming did what Newcastle has done, our state would sit in the top five of the national list, most likely number two, based on data from the past,” he added. 
While Kelley said that Weston County has always provided great care to patients, the difference now is that they decided they wanted to do better and be able to show it. 
“There is no mandate and little outside money to help, aside from the small amount that I am able to help with through the grant for purchasing some equipment and building the training infrastructure,” Kelley said. “Weston County found things that they thought were locked down but actually weren’t, then they fixed it. They have created a system to ensure continual competency on the procedures and process to make sure that when one of our kids enters their facility they get the right treatment in the right amount of time and can get to the right place in the right amount of time. Best of all, they did it not because someone made them do it but because the team thought it was the right thing to do.”
He added that he is very proud of Weston County Health Services, and the other Wyoming facilities that have achieved this goal. 
“What they have done isn’t easy and it is an “extra” thing on top of everything they already have to do,” he said. “It isn’t going to increase their bottom line, and many of the effects can’t be neatly placed in a metric to show its impact.” 
Cadwell added that she and the staff are excited to bring this level of care to Weston County’s service area. 
“When it is your kid in the ED bed, there is no such thing as good enough. The same is true for readiness. ‘Good enough’ can only be measured after an event has transpired, and then you can’t change it. Readiness is trying to account for all of it, especially the things that you can’t possibly know, and building the infrastructure to be able to manage the surprises so that you are at your best when the time comes to use it,” Kelley concluded. “That is the goal of this program. Be ready for every kid that comes through those doors. After it is done, be better, no matter how good a job you did. Then do it again tomorrow. Weston County Health Services and the others have decided that is what they are going to do: be good … then be better, and repeat.”