Northeast Georgia Medical Center – Lumpkin Emergency Department

Dahlonega, Georgia

The emergency department system pediatric workgroup at Northeast Georgia Medical Center – Lumpkin is a multidisciplinary team that meets monthly to discuss pediatric initiatives and provide education for the nursing staff. The ED has a registered nurse who represents the department on this team. She is responsible for disseminating information obtained from the pediatric workgroup and for reviewing trends and data that pertain to the department to make improvements that benefit pediatric patients. Over the past year, the department has improved the number of times blood pressure was obtained on patients younger than 10 years old from 75.3 percent to 96 percent. This improvement was made possible by allowing the nursing staff autonomy to identify trends that may affect patients’ overall health while being supportive to those processes.

The nine-bed emergency department also worked within the community on outreach to the older population in the small, rural region. Working with community partners, ED staff identified a need to educate seniors about medication adherence. They partnered with the local senior citizen center to educate seniors about the importance of medication adherence and the effects of incorrect medication usage.