Emergency Medicine
Fact sheet

• In 2006, a survey by Child magazine ranked emergency medicine at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia number two in the nation.
• Children’s Hospital’s Emergency Department provides care for more than 75,000 emergency visits and admits more than 13,000 patients annually. Another 2,300 patients are cared for in the Extended Care Unit after their ED visit, sparing them an inpatient admission by continuing their care up to 23 hours.
• The specialty of pediatric emergency medicine was founded at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Children’s Hospital had one of the first training programs in the field of Pediatric Emergency Medicine.
• Children’s Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) is one of the largest, highest acuity pediatric emergency departments in the country and the highest volume emergency department in the Philadelphia area.
• Children’s Hospital’s ED is equipped to provide the most comprehensive services available to traumatically injured children, ranging from transport, emergency and acute care services to surgery, rehabilitation and follow-up care.
• As the first accredited Level I Pediatric Trauma Center in eastern Pennsylvania, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia is a premier site for the evaluation, treatment and expert care of children who have experienced severe or life-threatening injuries.
• Children’s Hospital Emergency Department serves as a referral center for local emergency departments and physicians, and it is the institution’s policy never to divert patients from the Emergency Department.
• The hospital is currently building a new Emergency Department that will have 77 rooms. The expanded ED and additional rooms are expected to open in 2006.
• Family-centered care is carried out in Children’s Hospital’s Emergency Department – as it is throughout the Hospital and its pediatric healthcare network. Dedicated Emergency Department Social Workers are present 24 hours a day to assist families, and Child Life Specialists staff the ED during peak hours.
• Families are not only permitted, but encouraged to stay with their children at all times in the Emergency Department.
• Children’s Hospital’s most recent survey of ED patients showed the 92 percent were satisfied or very satisfied with their experience with an overall score of 3.42 (with a 4.0 being a perfect score). This score is higher than Gallop’s benchmark of 3.3 for other ED’s.
• Children’s Hospital’s Trauma Program treats approximately 13,000 children a year who arrive at the Emergency Department suffering from a traumatic injury. Each year, Children’s Hospital admits nearly 1,000 trauma patients, offering comprehensive pediatric rehabilitation services for patients requiring short- or long-term care. Following discharge, trauma patients receive outpatient care through Children’s Hospital’s Trauma Follow-Up Clinic.
• As a strong advocate of trauma prevention, Children’s Hospital is the lead organization for SAFE KIDS Coalition of Southeastern Pennsylvania and the Injury Free Coalition for Kids of Philadelphia.
• Children’s Hospital is a pioneer in pediatric injury prevention research and home to TraumaLink, a multidisciplinary injury research center that is a world leader in the study of pediatric trauma, including Partners for Child Passenger Safety, the largest single research project ever undertaken to examine motor vehicle injuries in children.

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