Friday, November 18, 2011

Additional Emergency Information for Medical Staff

I've been trying to read as much as possible about the management of anaphylaxis and anything else do to with that. After experiencing our first official anaphylactic emergency, I have to say I'm glad with the information contained in these two documents. Childcare dutifully passed on the information directly to ambulance paramedics who immediately passed it onto hospital medical staff. There's nothing like something written in black and white to make sure people fully understand what they're dealing with. I could just imagine that if his stay had to be longer, the safe foods list could have been photocopied for the kitchen too.

I keep thinking that we should also get one of those Medic Bracelets with our son's allergies, but all this additional information is also important and goes beyond what an emergency hotline would hold I think... correct me if I'm wrong here!

So anyway, here are my thoughts on these matters:

Ambulance ride to hospital
If your child needs to go to hospital, you really want to be there for the ride in the ambulance etc. But what if you're not there? What if an incident happens at childcare for example? What if your child gets to hospital and it takes you a little bit longer to get there? You hope that the transfer of information occurs, but in reality, in the midst of an emergency, I can imagine and even understand if not all the correct information gets passed on.

So, I've just spent some time putting together a package for childcare that they can pass on to ambulance officers, who will hopefully then pass the information to hospital staff. This includes a photocopy of our son's Emergency Action Plan with the list of all his allergies, a summary of doctors and specialist contact numbers, our contact numbers, other back up names and numbers, as well as our son's Safe Foods List. Oh and I've also put the names of medications that he may be on. I've printed it on orange/red paper so that it stands out. I've also laminated it :-) This little package will go into our son's emergency pack so that if they ever have to use the Epipen, it'll be ready to go.All this is especially important when our kids are young and perhaps not able to communicate the full extent of their allergies.
 Car Accident
After putting that together, I started to think... what if we have a car accident and our son is with us, but we're incapacitated? So off to the printers I go, another set for the car. I think I'll put this in the seat pocket - again in red, with perhaps a large medical cross on it.

With immediate family all living interstate, childcare are the most knowledgeable concerning our son's allergies. They are the only ones who cook for him, apart from my husband and I. So, I print out a letter of authorisation to release information. This allows childcare to tell medical staff, and even our friends who are our emergency contacts information that may be helpful if they need to provide food or care for our son.

6 comments:

  1. we just got a medical alert bracelet for rhylan even though he is with me at all times it is nice to have I listed multiple anaphylaxis and food allergies on the front with name and dob and on back listed his all his anaphylaxis and only had enough room for one of his allergies our hospital has all his info and the closest larger hospital. i make him wear it every time we go out even though he is with me. It is good that u are putting in the effort that is needed for him. Their is so much effort u need to put in, good job.

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  2. That is a great idea to actually contact your local hospital with allergy information before hand. I'll have to put that on my to do list as well! Thanks for the tip.

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  3. Such a great idea!! I will be putting on my to do list! Thanks for the very helpful tips!:)

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    1. I'm glad it's given you some extra ideas. I have to admit it's been a while since I've updated our son's emergency information. We have our next skin test in less than a month... here's praying that I can maybe just chuck it all in the bin! Or at least delete a whole heap of stuff... fingers crossed!

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