(FORT CARSON, Colo.) — Health care providers at Evans Army Community Hospital (EACH) received critical training in pediatric trauma care on Tuesday, Aug. 5, led by Children’s Hospital Colorado.
The training focused on preparing providers to handle traumatic injuries in children, a crucial skill given that EACH primarily treats adults.
“Children, they aren’t little adults, they do have their own anatomy and physiology that is extremely specific in certain situations, and with certain mechanisms of disease and injury,” said Michael Wittkamp, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics in the Colorado University School of Medicine, and the Attending Physician for the Pediatric ICU for Children’s Hospital Colorado. “So we’re here to help with education for these mostly adult providers, who are still committed to doing their best on any patient that walks through the doors.”
About 40 providers, including nurses and active duty personnel, participated in the training scenarios.
“[Children’s Hospital] is a great partner for us because they help us with elevating our care so that we’re ready to do all these urgent procedures,” said Joseph Zaremba, the Medical Director and Acting Department Chair of the Emergency Department at EACH.
Although these scenarios are fairly rare at EACH, they do sometimes happen. To be prepared, they practiced stabalizing kids in emergency situations so they can be safely transferred to a higher level of care.
Dennis Pitts, a Clinical Manager for a Pediatric ICU with Children’s Hospital Colorado, emphasized the importance of having quality care accessible on base.
“What we don’t want to see is people putting their loved ones in jeopardy and driving them in the back of their car, all the way to the north end of town,” Pitts said.
The collaboration between EACH and Children’s Hospital Colorado ensures that families on base have access to quality pediatric care when minutes matter most.
The training sessions are conducted quarterly to ensure that skills remain fresh, and to accommodate regular turnover due to deployment.
“Our job is to take care of the patients in the community, but we’re also responsible for training the soldiers so that when they go and deploy, they’re able to take care of the soldier,” said Zaremba. “So, we have a dual mission here that a lot of hospitals don’t have, and we’re constantly getting new medics that have just finished training programs.”
The teams say scenarios they’ve practiced in the past have become a reality at EACH with positive outcomes.
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