Date:
To Whom It May Concern:
The pediatric providers at
including physicians
, nurse practitioner
, and physicians
assistants
have a working relationship and communication process with the
Emergency
Department (ED), pediatric hospitalists and pediatric intensivists at
Hospital (
).
When a pediatric patient requires acute services at
Hospital, a provider from our practice calls:
 The ED at
to speak with a pediatric emergency room physician. We inform
the ED team that if the child requires admission, that they be admitted to the pediatric hospitalist
service.
 The “One-Call” staff at
to provide information regarding a direct admission
and to talk to the pediatric hospitalist accepting admissions.
o Pertinent clinical details such as labs, recent visit documentation, growth curves are
FAXed at the time of admission or as subsequently requested to the ED at
, inpatient units at
or the pediatric intensive care unit at
.
If an emergency department patient requires admission to
Hospital, either the ED staff or inpatient
staff calls the practice to give an update regarding the patient’s status. This happens for EACH child
requiring admission to the pediatric service whether or not the patient was referred to the emergency
department (
Hospital or outside ED) by the practice.
A visit summary is faxed to the practice for each patient as they are discharged from the ED. For patients
not admitted to hospital, a phone call is placed to the practice’s on-call physician for patients requiring
close outpatient monitoring and follow-up.
The morning after admission, there is an autoFAX system to alert the provider that a patient has been
admitted to
Hospital. The provider can call to request a FAX of the visit documentation / H&P and
are encouraged to call for updates as needed: Hospital ED:
; acute care units:
hospitalist triage phone:
or intensive care unit:
.
The hospital staff will update by phone or intermittent FAX reports when the patient’s clinical status
changes or when the provider’s input is required.
At the time of discharge from an acute pediatric unit, the hospitalist service will communicate via:
 A FAX of the discharge summary including discharge instructions within one working day.
 A phone call from the discharging team is placed before each child leaves the hospital:
o A message will be left with the practice staff with a call back number if there are no acute
issues (the discharge summary contains the pertinent details)
o
o
A provider-to-provider conversation will be requested if there are labs or specific details
which require follow up
The
hospital team will request a follow up appointment for families who
REQUIRE follow up (some patients only need an appointment if the clinical course is not
consistently improving). Patients requiring a follow up visit include, but are not limited
to, asthmatics, patients with pending lab results, patients with still unexplained or not
completely resolved symptoms, etc.
We, members of the practice, have developed processes to consistently communicate among our call
group when patients are admitted to the hospital and when communication is received from the ED or
inpatient units. The on-call provider consistently notifies the child’s actual primary care provider or next
covering provider when a child has been admitted or is being discharged.
Both our practice and members of
Hospital provider team strive for great clinical care and that
includes careful communication, especially during transitions of care. Each member of the team is
responsible for good communication and for providing feedback when the best communication did not
occur. Individual providers at our practice would like to hear when the
Hospital team did receive
the communication needed to care for our patients.
Specific providers at
Hospital can be individually reached for direct feedback, or the leadership
team including
are available for appropriate information regarding individual patients or the
process in general.
Agreed and accepted
(Practice)_________________________________ Date_____________
(Hospital)__________________________________Date_____________
Date___________________