Designing a pediatric emergency triage and action program

Abstract

BACKGROUND In Japan, non-pediatricians face many instances in which they must see children, partly due to the uneven distribution of pediatricians among urban and rural areas. We aimed to develop and examine the effect of a model simulation-based training program in pediatric primary care for non-pediatric medical and ancillary personnel who express misgivings about seeing pediatric patients in an emergency setting due to their perception of their lack of training in this area.METHODS We instituted a series of workshops on common pediatric emergency situations, first with physicians, and later also including ancillary personnel, as a form of interprofessional education. The entire program was constructed around Design-based Research.RESULTS Feedback from attendees and facilitators was mostly positive, leading us to open the workshops to ancillary personnel.CONCLUSIONS From a training point of view, this epistemological investigation was successful in mitigating anxieties in individuals about seeing pediatric emergency patients. The effects on patient care remain to be studied.