Pediatric Emergency Room Case Study

This essay explains a critical incident that occurred on the pediatric emergency room, on my first week on the unit as a nurse technician, the incident relates to pediatric patients that range from three days old to fifteen years of age. The patient that fell during the fall was six- year old patient that had a increase of drowsy from pharmological treatment, which caused an increased risk for falls. In the Emergency department falls happen due to stretcher side rails up not being up while transporting or leaving patients unattended. As a nurse technician in the pediatric emergency department, I feel it is imperative to ensure patient safety. The age groups that are being seen pose an increase for falls. Reasons why young patients may experience

Jane doe was a six- year old patient that came into the pediatric emergency room. The patient came in with a complaint of right lower quadrant pain, which was transferred from lake after hours for a possible appendicitis. My first contact was with the patient was when they came back into a room, where I got hourly vitals accompanied by my preceptor. With every encounter with the patient the child would move from each side of the bed to find the most comfortable position due the increased amount of pain. Patient mother was busy tending to her other three children that came into the emergency room with, which causes mom to be distracted from the child that is in pain distress. With every encounter with the patient I would raise the side rails to ensure patient safety. Later on in the shift the patient needed to be transferred into a room on the floor. As a result the preceptor took over by transferring the patient to their room as I observed the process of bringing patients on the floor. Once we brought the client in the room, we were leaving to return back to the emergency department. As we were walking down the hall we could hear something falling on the floor and immediately after was a scream and cry. By this happening could have caused major complications such as head injury, and possibility of rupturing the appendix if landed on that part of the abdomen. Once we made it back to the room I noticed that my preceptor left the bed rails down as well as leaving the hospital bed raised. Due to this incident this taught me a lesson to follow while in the work setting and clinical setting. If a similar situation were to happen in the future I would ensure client will bed rails raised down and bed is