Thousands of Child Emergency Room Deaths Could Be Prevented With Modest Investment: Study

One out of every four childhood emergency room deaths could be avoided if all emergency rooms were raised to high pediatric standards.

Emergency room pediatric standards could be raised at hospitals nationwide for less than $12 per child, which researchers indicate could prevent thousands of children’s deaths each year.

More than 7,600 children died in U.S. emergency rooms each year from 2012 through 2022. However, researchers have found that 28.1% of those deaths could have been prevented by better pediatric emergency room readiness.

Preparing emergency rooms for children is a critical issue in the U.S., since children have unique physical, developmental and medical needs, which differ from adults.

In a new study published in JAMA Open Network on November 1, researchers put a price tag on how much it would cost to save thousands of children’s lives each year, indicating that one out of four child emergency room deaths could be avoided with a relatively modest investment.

A team of researchers led by Dr. Craig D. Newgard, of the Department of Emergency Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University, looked at data from emergency rooms in all 50 U.S. states, as well as the District of Columbia, to estimate both state and national costs that would be incurred by raising all U.S. emergency rooms to high readiness standards for children under 18.

Dr. Newgard’s team determined that out of 4,840 emergency departments, 842 already had a high state of pediatric readiness. The annual cost to raise pediatric readiness levels in the remaining ones would total $207,335,302, which would cost less than $12 per child in each state.

By raising these readiness standards, the researchers indicate that 2,143 out of 7,619 annual child deaths could have been prevented across the U.S each year. As a result, the researchers called for new legislation, which would improve state and national policies to address the issue.

“In this cohort study, raising all [emergency rooms] to high pediatric readiness was estimated to prevent more than one-quarter of deaths among children receiving emergency services, with modest financial investment,” Dr. Newgard said. “State and national policies that raise [emergency room] pediatric readiness may save thousands of children’s lives each year.”

Pediatric Emergency Room Readiness

Prior studies have already highlighted the need for improving pediatric readiness at emergency rooms in the U.S., confirming that these steps will prevent many childhood deaths.

In 2023, a study found that taking steps to make hospitals and trauma centers better prepared for pediatric injuries could prevent more than 1,600 children’s deaths each year.

That research used data from the National Trauma Data Bank, involving more than 213,000 children under 18 years old who were injured and treated at a U.S. trauma center that had completed the 2013 National Pediatric Readiness Assessment, which is an ongoing program, designed to improve pediatric ER readiness.

Although researchers in the National Trauma Data Bank study determined that improved pediatric emergency room readiness could save children’s lives, they did not put a price tag on what it would take to address the problem, which Dr. Newgard’s team has accomplished.