Standardizing Guidelines for Pediatric Head Injuries

In the last 18 years there has been an increase of pediatric patients being seen in emergency departments for head trauma. Individual providers base clinical care on experience and knowledge, with potential for variants in treatment of each patient. When care is provider dependent, although rare, missed clinically important traumatic brain injures can lead to permanent deficits or death. A quality improvement project was designed that created clinical guidelines by use of the PECARN algorithm to decrease the use of unnecessary neuroimaging in an emergency department treating pediatric blunt head trauma. A scoring tool, note template, and web link to PECARN algorithm and clinical guidelines are available in electronic health records. This study continues to validate the use of PECARN head injury rules. Guidelines will improve patient outcomes. The goal of this project is to decrease the number of CT head and brain by 10% for children in the emergency department who sustained blunt head trauma.