Videoconferencing to reduce stress among hospitalized children.

Objectives: Family-Link is a videoconferencing program that allows hospitalized children and their parents to virtually visit family members and friends using laptops, webcams, and a secure Wi-Fi connection. We evaluated the association of Family-Link use on the reduction in stress experienced by children during hospitalization.

Methods: We offered Family-Link to pediatric patients who had an expected length of hospitalization equal to or greater than 4 days.

Inhaled nitric oxide and sildenafil therapy for a pediatric patient with multiple pulmonary arteriovenous malformations.

Pulmonary arteriovenous malformations may result in intrapulmonary shunting and hypoxemia, and often are treated by embolization or surgical resection. Previous reports have demonstrated effective treatment of hypoxia with inhaled nitric oxide in the acute setting. In this report, we describe a child with severe hypoxemia secondary to an inoperable pulmonary arteriovenous malformation that was initially managed with the use of nitric oxide followed by long term management with the phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitor, sildenafil.

Telemedicine consultations and medication errors in rural emergency departments.

Objective: To compare the frequency of physician-related medication errors among seriously ill and injured children receiving telemedicine consultations, similar children receiving telephone consultations, and similar children receiving no consultations in rural emergency departments (EDs).

Methods: We conducted retrospective chart reviews on seriously ill and injured children presenting to 8 rural EDs with access to pediatric critical care physicians from an academic children's hospital. Physician-related ED medication errors were independently identified by 2 pediatric pharmacists by using a previously published instrument.

Successful management of plastic bronchitis in a child post Fontan: case report and literature review.

Purpose: Plastic bronchitis is the occlusion of the major bronchial airways by a firm, gelatinous mucoid cast. It is a rare condition, which while classically described in asthma and sickle cell disease has greater mortality in patients with congenital heart disease. The management of this disease is obscure given the lack of clinical data regarding treatment therapies.

Connecting hospitalized patients with their families: case series and commentary.

The overall aim of this project was to ascertain the utilization of a custom-designed telemedicine service for patients to maintain close contact (via videoconference) with family and friends during hospitalization. We conducted a retrospective chart review of hospitalized patients (primarily children) with extended hospital length of stays. Telecommunication equipment was used to provide videoconference links from the patient's bedside to friends and family in the community.

Cranial computed tomographic findings in a large group of children with drowning: diagnostic, prognostic, and forensic implications.

Objectives: The primary aim of this study is to better define both the type and incidence of cranial computed tomography (CT) abnormalities in children following submersion injury.

Design: This is a retrospective chart review; patients were selected from a drowning registry that extends from January 1989 to April 2006.

Setting: Children's Hospital, San Diego.

Type B lactic acidosis and insulin-resistant hyperglycemia in an adolescent following cardiac surgery.

Objective: To report the presence of type B lactic acidosis and insulin-resistant hyperglycemia following cardiopulmonary bypass in a pediatric patient.

Design: Case report.

Setting: Tertiary referral children's hospital pediatric intensive care unit.

Comparison of critically ill and injured children transferred from referring hospitals versus in-house admissions.

Objective: The purpose of this work was to compare the outcomes, severity of illness, and resource use of patients transferred to PICUs from outside hospitals to patients admitted from within the same hospital.

Methods: We conducted a secondary analysis of patients from the 20 US PICUs in the most recent Pediatric Intensive Care Unit Evaluations Software Recalibration Database on a total of 13,017 emergent PICU admissions between January 2001 and January 2006. Dependent variables were PICU resource use and risk-adjusted mortality.

Familial Sweet's syndrome in 2 brothers, both seen in the first 2 weeks of life.

Sweet's syndrome (or acute febrile neutrophilic dermatosis) is a rare inflammatory disease that is characterized by fever, neutrophilia, and painful erythematous plaques that histologically show a dense dermal infiltrate of neutrophils without associated vasculitis. We describe 2 neonates (10 and 15 days of age) with Sweet's syndrome; to our knowledge, this is the first reported case of siblings with Sweet's syndrome.