Author Archives: pamela

Choosing Wisely – Improving value of care following Covid19

In the era of Covid-19, the imperative to manage our finite healthcare resources has become greater than ever. RCH became a Choosing Wisely Champion Hospital in 2019 and is committed to providing the safest, high-quality, high-value care for our patients.  Through Choosing Wisely, the RCH is part of a worldwide campaign challenging clinicians to think differently about the way we provide care, and to challenge the status quo when what we might normally do is no longer adding value to patient outcomes.

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COVID-19: Vaccines in development and getting them to where they are needed

The exit strategy for COVID-19 is a vaccine. To stop this pandemic we may need to vaccinate a significant proportion of the entire global population of 7 billion people. Where are we up to with vaccine development? Who gets vaccinated? How to communicate the benefits of a novel, fast tracked vaccine when misinformation is already spreading.

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It’s possible! Rehabilitation from COVID-19 and the climate emergency

We are living through the greatest disruption of the post-war era; what is likely to be the defining historical period of our lives. This may be the end of the ‘good times’ for the world, but it has been a long time coming, and Covid-19 is simply an accelerant. Therefore, it is important now to focus on what has to be done, for all that stands between us and disaster is good government.

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COVID-19: Decisions, ethics – and the impact on staff

COVID-19 has resulted in a flurry of high-stakes decision-making, at a public health level and an individual patient level, with significant impacts on how children are cared for, and how staff work. Many of these decisions have ethical dimensions.

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What’s COVID-19 doing to our blood vessels?

Blood-clotting complications are rapidly emerging as a significant part of the pathogenesis of COVID-19. There are reports of otherwise well people with COVID-10 having strokes, pulmonary emboli and heart attacks, and children with inflammation of their blood vessels. In recent weeks series of cases of a multi-system inflammatory condition, some resembling Kawasaki disease, have been reported in children in Europe, UK and USA.

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COVID-19: Are the Kids Really OK?

Data from around the world consistently shows that COVID-19 is essentially a mild disease in children. However, the indirect effects of COVID-19 may have a more profound effect than the direct effects of the infection.
We will hear from 3 speakers on the global and clinical aspects, and the broader social, education and wellbeing impact of COVID-19 on children.

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Electroencephalography (EEG) at RCH: Still making waves

Electroencephalography (EEG) has a long history at The Royal Children’s Hospital. From its beginnings in the pre-imaging era as simple paper recordings of brain waves in children with various neurological disorders, EEG has evolved to a specialised discipline within neurophysiology, drawing on the many advances in clinical neurology, computerisation and neuroimaging.

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From theory to practice – how do we make our Compact work?

Under the leadership of Paul F. Levy, the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston engaged in a program to eliminate preventable harm to patients, with a remarkable level of transparency to the public about the hospital’s progress towards that goal.

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