Latest news with #PhoenixChildrensHospital
Daily Mail
22-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
Little girl 'no longer smiles' after receiving 30 vials of antivenom while recovering from rattlesnake bites
An Arizona toddler has not smiled since Friday, when she was rushed to a local hospital after being bitten twice by a diamondback rattlesnake. She has since been pumped with 30 vials of antivenom - and may need even more - as her family worries about the long term effects the 15 month old may face. 'We miss her smiles,' Jacquelyn Reed told 12 News. She explained that she and her young daughter, Cara, were simply walking around their property near Florence when Reed went to throw away a piece of trash. Reed says she was only gone for about 10 seconds before she heard Cara start to cry. When she then went to find out what was wrong, she noticed the young girl 'had four puncture wounds on the top of her foot, in the little window of her little jelly shoe, and behind her, to her left was a snake coiled up.' Terrified, Reed said she immediately scooped Cara up and rushed to a nearby emergency room - calling ahead of time to let the doctors know her daughter needed antivenom. But an online fundraiser set up to help the family with the little girl's medical expenses says the hospital was unable to provide the antidote for over an hour - and soon Cara's foot started to turn black. At the same time, Reed said, Cara ended up vomiting and passed out. From there, the hospital airlifted the little girl to Phoenix Children's Hospital for treatment - where Reed said Cara has 'had 30 vials of antivenom so far.' Her recovery has not been easy, as Cara soon started having trouble breathing and had to be intubated. That tube was finally removed on Tuesday, following a difficult few hours for the family. 'For the first few hours after taking the tube out, her breathing was very tight and we couldn't keep her oxygen up,' Cara's aunt wrote on the online fundraiser, noting that at times the little girl's oxygen saturation dropped to just 25 percent. Eventually, Cara's medical team at Phoenix Children's Hospital called the Ears, Nose and Throat specialists to the bedside - where they discovered that the toddler's vocal cords were swollen nearly shut. At that point, the doctors provided the little girl with more steroids, respiratory treatments, 'positioned her in a specific way to help with her floppy airway' and started her on oxygen mixed with helium. 'We were told that if she didn't show improvement within the hour, that we would be reintubating her with a tiny breathing tube and heading to the OR to have a vocal cord dilation performed,' her aunt, Delia, wrote. 'We prayed and sat by her side, listening for improvement in her breathing' and soon, Cara 'began to move more air,' Delia wrote in an update on the online fundraiser. 'She slowly showed improvement and got over the hump.' Then on Wednesday, Delia wrote that Cara was 'finally getting nourishment by way of a feeding tube. 'Cara is now aware enough to make eye contact and is getting upset when Mom goes out of her sight,' she shared. 'She is so strong and resilient, and we are so happy with the progress she is making.' Yet it remains unclear whether Cara will ever regain full function of her foot, as Delia noted on Tuesday that she was beginning to show signs of long term injuries, and 'we do know that her injury is unfortunately one of the more severe. 'We will be looking to see what kind of recovery she can make, but right now, nothing is off the table as far as her long term damage goes,' Delia shared, noting that the family is considering foot surgery. But both she and Jacquelyn say they are just glad Cara survived the ordeal. 'We are just grateful we still have our little girl with us,' Delia wrote on the GoFundMe, as she thanked everyone who has raised over $17,000 for the little girl's recovery. 'Cara is a true blessing from God and somehow, everyone knows it,' she said. 'We feel your love and your support and [know] without a DOUBT that Cara was preserved today because of the outpouring of faith and prayers to our Heavenly Father by all who love her.' Jacquelyn added that her baby is 'the angel of the family' and she still hopes 'that we can get full function back, that she can, you know, be back to her normal, happy, like cute, adorable self.'
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Mom Was ‘Terrified' After Her 15-Month-Old's Foot Turned Black From Snake Bite. After 30 Vials of Antivenom, She's Improving
The family of a 15-month-old in Arizona said she was bitten twice by a rattlesnake while walking outside of her home with her mother, Jacquelyn Reed Cara Reed's mom told NBC affiliate KPNX her daughter needed 30 vials of antivenom after the bite The toddler's foot initially blackened and her oxygen levels dropped, but Jacquelyn said Cara is now able to wiggle her toes and no longer needs a breathing tubeAn Arizona 15-month old is recovering in the hospital after her family says she was bitten twice by a rattlesnake. Jacquelyn Reed told NBC affiliate KPNX that she and her daughter Cara were walking at their home near Florence, Arizona when the little girl was bitten. Reed said she walked away for ten seconds to throw out some trash, then heard her daughter crying. "[Cara] had four puncture wounds on the top of her foot, in the little window of her little jelly shoe, and behind her, to her left was a snake coiled up," Reed told KPNX. 'I was terrified.' She drove her daughter to the emergency room, after which Cara was eventually airlifted to Phoenix Children's Hospital for her injuries. Reed said Cara has needed 30 vials of antivenom treatment and had to be intubated. Her mom said it was "difficult" to see her daughter's "complications" from the bite. The toddler's foot initially blackened and her oxygen levels dropped to just 25%, but her mother told KPNX that Cara is now able to wiggle her toes and she no longer needs a breathing tube. '[Cara's] the angel of the family,' Reed told KPNX. 'Obviously, I hope that we can get full function back, that she can be back to her normal, happy, cute, adorable self.' According to KPNX, Reed isn't sure if her daughter's foot will regain its full function. However, she said that if she hadn't acted quickly after the bite, she doesn't know if her daughter would have survived. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. A GoFundMe to help cover Cara's recovery costs has already raised more than $7,000. "She is a strong little girl and fighting so hard," the GoFundMe description reads. "She has a whole community of people that love her." Read the original article on People
Medscape
16-05-2025
- Health
- Medscape
Hospitalists Lead Charge Against HAIs
It reads like the alphabet soup of healthcare: CDI, MRSA, CAUTI, and VAE. Those letters all fall under the category of hospital or healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs), and they can wreak havoc on patient care. On any given day, about 1 in 31 hospital patients has at least one HAI, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The good news: As of 2023, the numbers demonstrated an improvement from the decade prior, but even a single HAI case is one too many. Most HAIs manifest within 48 hours after hospital admission. They are not only a patient-specific problem but also a community-based problem. Some HAIs — like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus — are linked to multidrug resistance. Preventing and minimizing the spread of these infections are essential to public health. Risk comes down to a facility's infection control practices, a patient's immune status, and the prevalence of pathogens in a given community. 'Healthcare-acquired infections should be a focus for all hospitals and institutions,' said Reina A. Patel, DO, pediatric hospitalist at Phoenix Children's Hospital, Phoenix. 'Any and all of them can be serious, depending on the host and what all they have going on at the time.' When it comes to HAIs, hospitalists are often at the front line of care. Therefore, it's essential that hospitalists understand how to best work with their team to prevent, identify, and optimally treat patients presenting with HAIs. Prevention as the Best Line of Defense The most common HAIs hospitalists encounter include pneumonia, surgical site infections (SSIs), gastrointestinal infections, urinary tract infections, and catheter-associated bloodstream infections. According to the National Institutes of Health, Clostridium difficile is the leading cause of infections, followed by S aureus and Escherichia coli . Transmission is complex and occurs from a wide variety of sources or combinations thereof. The best line of treatment, according to Patel, is prevention. Care bundles encourage consistent, evidence-based standard practices aimed at preventing HAIs. When implemented together, they can often lead to success. They involve three to five simple, clear steps. The key is that every member of the care team uses them, records it, and does so consistently. While that's ideal, it doesn't always happen. 'If I'm going to take care of a central line, there are certain steps I need to follow,' said Patel. 'I need to think about all those steps and whether they are clinically indicated. That knowledge is power and can make a difference.' In addition to care bundles, regular, consistent training on infection control is key. The CDC created its STRIVE curriculum to address both the technical and foundational elements of HAIs. Hospitals can use the modules in new hire training, or annual or periodic training, in the case of rising infection rates. Lora Sparkman, an RN and clinical leader with Relias, a workforce education and enablement solutions provider, has spent the past 5 years focused on virtual reality training, with a special focus on HAI control. 'In a perfect world, every member of the healthcare team is following the critical steps to prevent infection,' she said. 'But you're rapidly reassessing and reformulating the emergency in front of you. Steps get missed and you're only as good as your next infection.' Sparkman views the key to prevention as education and, in this case, changing how hospitals carry out that education. In a collaborative effort, Relias and Emory University launched Project Firstline, the CDC's national training collaborative for healthcare infection control. The training turns the traditional didactic approach on its head and, instead, implements virtual reality training. 'Telling people to wash their hands and watching PowerPoints hasn't moved the dial,' said Sparkman. 'With VR [virtual reality] training, clinicians can 'see' the virtual germs that cause infection, which heightens their awareness. They can also see where they might have missed a step in their prevention steps.' The training is assessment-based and designed for hospitals to use more frequently than traditional annual training and in smaller chunks of time. 'The approach creates recall in the brain so that you're carrying it with you longer and better,' said Sparkman. 'When training is faster and to the point, you're also more likely to get doctors to the table.' When Prevention Fails While prevention is ideal, it's still not always successful. In most cases, when a patient acquires an infection, it swiftly complicates their situation. 'You're treating for one condition and now adding another, which increases length of stay,' said Patel. 'As first line of defense, hospitalists are often the first to notice something is amiss.' The key to treating HAIs when they arise is co-management, said Patel. If you're dealing with an SSI, for instance, your co-manager in the patient's care will be the surgeon. But a hospitalist and a surgeon may have different approaches to care, which is where collaboration comes into play. 'A surgeon will think about the surgical site, which they should,' Patel said. 'But a hospitalist might be on the floor and available, and a nurse will reach out because a patient has a fever. A hospitalist will think of the reasons why that fever is there.' Hospitalists, then, have an advantage in HAI care; they are readily available to jump in at the first indication of infection. They can draw blood cultures, send them to the lab, order imaging, and prescribe treatment, if needed. If the infection is related to a surgery, 'reach out to the surgeon and ask to be there to see the site,' said Patel. 'That way you have a baseline of what the site looks like and can monitor it. If you don't do that, you might only have nurses or surgeons looking at the site in a silo.' That's a mistake because hospitalists are typically the physician with the most touch points with patients. Another member of the care team should be the infectious disease specialist. 'Often there's a decision to make, like how long you need to treat an infection before you can resume treating through a central line, for instance,' said Patel. 'It's definitely coordinated care.' Most institutions are focused on lowering their HAI rates and recognize it's a multidisciplinary approach. For example: In 2023, Patel's institution implemented a two-step bathing process prior to surgery. Six months on and with high compliance, the hospital has dramatically lessened its SSI rates. 'Anyone thinking about HAI prevention should consider all the different angles and services that interact with the patient,' Patel said. 'How do we engage everyone to make a difference?' The answer may lie with hospitalists, who regularly interact with many members of the care team. 'The role of the hospitalist is the specialist in the hospital,' said Sparkman. 'They are on staff around the clock, and they cut across the entire hospital.' Patel agreed. 'How you conduct your rounds, whether by yourself or with a group of learners, is critical,' she said. 'It should be a family-centered rounding, including nurses, pharmacists, and hospitalists, and you should always be thinking about what more you can do for infection control.'
