Summerville Medical Center unveiled on Tuesday its first-ever pediatric ambulance, which medical staff hopes will provide a less scary experience for children who find themselves riding in it.
With innovative technology and advanced healthcare capabilities, the new ambulance—owned and operated by MedTrust—is quite different in appearance and features than a typical one.
With bright colors and a happy outdoor theme featuring children’s faces and sunshine, the vehicle is hard to miss during the day—or night, since it even glows in the dark. But that’s just its outer uniqueness. Walk inside and find opportunities for entertainment—a television and gaming stations that hospital CEO Lisa Valentine said she hopes will keep children “happy and a little more comfortable on their way to Summerville Medical.”
“It’s another great resource to care for our patients,” she said. “This is a big day for us.”
The ambulance will be used for transfers from other hospitals or from doctor's offices.
Valentine said the ambulance is also a perfect tool to help transport patients from outside the community to the hospital for necessary care. In a region of booming growth, children remain the hospital’s fastest-growing patient population, keeping the hospital busy throughout the year, according to Valentine.
Trident Health cares for 18,000 children each year at its emergency rooms, Valentine said.
For Emergency Physician Douglas Holtzman, who serves as medical director of Trident Health’s Pediatric Emergency Department at Summerville Medical, seeing the vehicle’s final reveal Tuesday was a priceless moment. He said he helped work on the project design during the last year but had yet to see the ambulance in person.
“It’s like Christmas for me. I get to open it up and see,” Holtzman said.
The ambulance addition is just one more notable news item for the hospital’s child-focused theme. Holtzman said the facility also recently added three pediatric specialists and celebrated the fourth anniversary of the pediatric emergency department on Nov. 1.
He said children and parents alike should feel encouraged by the specialized rescue vehicle, maintained by a team of first responders highly trained in pediatric care, which covers ages 0 to 18.
“Kids can compensate very well, and to the very end...and so the trouble with pediatrics...is they may look very well right before the bitter end,” Holtzman said, “so you have to be able to be prepared to recognize that, so that requires specific specialty training.”
Despite a running joke in the pediatric emergency department, Holtzman said children are much more than “little adults” and require unique treatment.
“They really (do) have specialized healthcare needs—developmentally, physically. Everything is weight-based,” he said. “You have to approach kids a little bit differently.”
Holtzman said he believed the ambulance would overall turn a “scary experience” for children and parents alike into a more calming and “less traumatic” one.
“Parents should have a lot of confidence in this new service and the people providing the care,” he said in a hospital press release.
The ambulance will transport children weighing at least 11 pounds and will be staffed with specialized pediatric equipment like IVs and cardiac and trauma tools, as well as ventilators and pedi-mates—a harness system for holding children safely and securely in place during transport.
“From a nuts and bolts perspective, on the inside of the vehicle, most of the things are going to be found in any sort of ambulance that are required by DHEC, but what a lot of the focus is with a child is things that we can do to help make the child comfortable,” said MedTrust CEO Josh Watts.
Watts said the main difference will be first responders' training and how they'll work with hospital staff to deliver proper patient care.
Watts it took about four months to complete the ambulance project and he's grateful for MedTrust's partnership with Summerville Medical.
“This is the first vehicle like this we’ve co-branded with a partner,” he said.
His company has also worked with hospital physicians to train in critical care scenarios for children who experience specialized trauma or need life support, the release said. In addition MedTrust EMTs and paramedics underwent advanced airway management training and pre-hospital education for pediatric providers. Though mainly for transporting children, the ambulance can also transport adults.
Hospital spokesperson Kelly Bowen said the vehicle will be ready for use in a couple more weeks, though she wasn’t sure of the exact timeline. She said the Department of Health and Environmental Services still has to finish a check on it.
In addition to the innovative ambulance, Summerville Medical is inching closer to better care for children, and women, through its opening in May 2018 of 30 more patient care beds in its new Women’s Hospital. Part of a $53 million expansion on the Midland Parkway property, the new facility is scheduled for full completion by 2019, hospital officials said.
