Pediatric Emergency Contact Notifications Made Easier

the head of the trauma department at one of America's top pediatric facilities, Chicago's Children's Memorial Hospital, having to notifying parents that their children have been the victims of trauma or identify pediatric Jane Does, is an every day occurrence. But just because they look like they're handling it well, doesn't mean that it ever becomes routine.

When a child comes into the ED without a parent, it's usually the result of an accident or traumatic event. Even though their first priority is to tend to the child's medical needs, their next priority is to identify the child. They need to get his parents or guardian down to the hospital, to give consent for his treatment, provide vital medical history and most importantly, to be at their child's side when he needs them most.

You'd be surprised how often a child is brought into Children's Memorial without anything pointing to his or her identity. Many times it's the result of a car accident, where the parents are injured as well as the child, and are taken to another hospital, while the child is brought to Children's for specialized pediatric treatment. Since children don't have driver's licenses or checkbooks, identifying a child can be challenging.

Just the other day, three children ranging from 8 months to 3 years were brought into the ED after a serious automobile accident.

Their parents, who were in bad shape, were taken to another hospital and the paramedics had no clue about their names, ages or medical history. The trauma team began their medical evaluation and as they always do when dealing with an unidentified child, opened a trauma pack for each, using a patient number to identify them. We estimated their ages, did a full physical description including any identifying marks and clothing, then ordered a full set of x-rays, which helps to identify any conditions or injuries that aren't readily apparent.

The team's biggest asset in this situation was the solid relationships that they've built with police, fire department, and other local hospitals - as they work together to get the children identified as quickly as possible. After a major accident like this, the police and fire department were already in the ED coordinating efforts. With their special emergency landline system they're instantly linked by phone with any local hospital they need to reach. As the team began calling to find out where the children's parents were taken, hospitals began to call them, to say, "I know you're looking for the mom and dad of the accident victims. They're not here," saving them precious time. In this case, we found the hospital relatively quickly and found out that even though the children's parents had been seriously injured, the children's caregiver who had also been in the accident, was fine. The hospital sent her over to Children's and she - and later on the parents - were able to give them all the information theyneeded to identify and treat the children.

In the case of a completely unidentified child, especially babies, they depend on our procedures. Usually the fire department, police or DCFS dropped the child off, so they are already aware of the situation and have already begun going through the child's clothing and personal effects to gather evidence and identify the child. The trauma team will send the police or paramedics right back to the scene to gather additional information, Medicine bottles, names, and to canvass the area. There is almost always someone who saw something. Someone from pastoral care automatically comes down and a social worker will get involved if it looks like any abuse was involved. Together, they take care of figuring out where to go from here, while the team takes care of the child medically.

If these steps don't elicit any clues to the child's identity, the hospital will get media affairs involved. Children's will never show the face or reveal the name of any child. Instead, they photograph the child's clothing and personal effects and release it to the media along with the child's estimated age, description and the vicinity in which she was found. They work closely with detectives and DCFS to give them all the details they need to chase down any leads they get from the public. Many times just calling DCFS or the police will locate parents or bring about an identification. In the case of severe trauma, abuse or inflicted injury, Children's always balances treating the child, with carefully gathering as much evidence as possible, to help the eventual police investigation. They had a young girl a few years ago, whose brutal attacker was convicted mainly on the evidence gathered and catalogued in the trauma room.

When it comes to providing emergency contact informa