Pediatric Primary Health Care: The Central Role of Pediatricians in Maintaining Children's Health in Evolving Health Care Models.

Pediatric primary health care (PPHC) is of principal importance to the health and development of all children, helping them reach their true potential. Pediatricians, as the clinicians most intensively trained and experienced in child health, are the natural leaders of PPHC within the context of the medical home. Given the rapidly evolving models of pediatric health care delivery, including the explosion of telehealth in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, pediatricians, together with their representative national organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), are the most capable clinicians to guide policy innovations on both the local and national stage.

Parental Coronavirus Disease 2019 Testing of Hospitalized Children: Rethinking Infection Control in a Pandemic.

Background: Novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) poses a challenge to infection control within hospital systems. Asymptomatic children and their caretakers carry the risk of silently spreading infection in pediatric emergency departments and hospital units. Our current knowledge is evolving, and infection control measures are frequently changing depending on new emerging data.

Unrelated strain methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus colonization of health care workers in a neonatal intensive care unit: findings of an outbreak investigation.

Three neonates and 5 health care workers were identified as colonized with methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) out of 222 individuals screened during an outbreak investigation in an 18-bed neonatal intensive care unit. Two of 3 MRSA neonatal isolates demonstrated identical pulsed-field gel electrophoresis clonal patterns but no clonal association was found among isolates from the 5 employees or between employees and neonates. Increased MRSA-unrelated strain colonization among health care workers supports increased MRSA community prevalence and probable decreased utility of mass screening.

Laparoscopic drainage of postappendectomy- retained fecalith and intra-abdominal abscess in the pediatric population.

Retained fecalith after an appendectomy is an uncommon complication frequently associated with intra-abdominal abscess. Treatment options include percutaneous, open, or laparoscopic drainage of the abscess and retrieval of the fecalith, as antibiotics and drainage alone are usually insufficient. Laparoscopy offers the advantages of enhanced visualization of the abdomen, improved cosmesis, and a quicker return to normal daily activities.

Improving pain management for pediatric patients undergoing nonurgent painful procedures.

Purpose: The development of a topical analgesia protocol to improve pain management for pediatric patients undergoing nonurgent painful procedures is described.

Summary: Leadership from the departments of pediatrics, neonatology, obstetrics and gynecology, nursing, pharmacy, child life, and phlebotomy were chosen to develop and implement a new protocol for topical analgesia use for nonurgent painful procedures in pediatric patients. A review of the published literature on pain management in neonates, infants, children, and adolescents led to the replacement of lidocaine 2.