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When a child's life is at stake, there's no second chance.
Trauma -- accidental injury -- kills more children than all other diseases combined. New England statistics are frightening -- two children die every day from accidental injury. Nationally, 15,000 children die from this killer each year and another 50,000 are permanently disabled.
A child is not a little adult. When injured, their reactions to drugs are different. Their responses to small amounts of blood loss are different and the mending of their growing bones is different.
For those hospitals called upon to treat only a few severely injured children a year, staffing and equipping a full time emergency pediatric unit can be impractical. At New England Medical Center, the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute (KPTI) and the Center's helicopter program, have joined together to provide referring hospitals the opportunity to move their patients safely and quickly to the KPTI regional facility where the best in pediatric trauma care is available 24 hours a day.
When the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute opened in 1981, it had a natural home in New England Medical Center's Floating Hospital for Infants & Children. As part of the NEMC family, the Trauma Institute has gained world wide recognition for its sophisticated innovations in caring for seriously injured children. As a result, it now receives patients from hospitals within the six New England states and often from other parts of the country and the world.
Utilizing a systems approach to trauma care, the Institutie addresses each of the problems created by an accident:
From our experience and ongoing research, we know that effective pediatric trauma care gegins at the moment of injury before a child reaches the hospital... when seconds count.The Institute has developed a full communications network which included police departments, ambulances, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), and area hospitals. Training courses are conducted for emergency medical personnel focusing on the special techniques of handling injured children. In addition, KPTI staff provides community hospitals with consulting services for designing facilities, self-assessment in pediatric trauma, and transfer arrangements.
Today, each Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute success story has proven that specialized pediatric trauma care takes sophisticated planning, a superb medical team and the most advanced medical technology.
New England Medical Center believes patients and families touched by the services of the Kiwanis Pediatric Trauma Institute are the best reason to continue to care for seriously injured children today, and to be ready for those who may need such dedication tomorrow.
For further information call (617) 956-6380