It’s a traumatic experience to have to take your child to receive urgent pediatric care. You will most likely need to make a heat-of-the-moment decision to take your child to the emergency room immediately, and you often leave right away. At that point in time, you are not thinking about all the necessities you might need for your child to get proper care.
Once you have decided you need to take your child to the emergency room, do not hesitate to act. In any case, you should keep documentation and other items nearby and ready to be taken with you at a moment’s notice. The following are a few examples of documents you might need.
1. Medical History
Any information on previous hospitalizations, operations, or other notable medical care will be extremely useful in times of crisis. It can help your child’s urgent care physician piece together what might be happening if the reason for going to the emergency room is not completely obvious.
2. Allergies
This is not referring to seasonal allergies but rather allergies to things like food and medications. For example, if your child is severely ill, it will be very important for the doctor to know if your child is allergic to penicillin. The same goes for common medications such as naproxen.
3. Medications
You should always know what kinds of medications your child is taking for these emergency situations for two reasons. First, the medication might be important to your child’s livelihood, and they need to take it in order to keep bodily functions working. Second, the doctor needs to know what medications are being taken to determine whether or not introducing other medications will lead to life-threatening reactions.
4. Family History
Sometimes, we have to go to urgent pediatric care simply because there is no other option. The reason for the emergency room visit might be caused by an underlying condition or disease that can be linked to genetic or hereditary origins. In this case, it is good to know your relative’s family history and provide this information to your child’s doctor.
5. Report of Previous Symptoms
This is probably the hardest to keep track of simply because you need to be aware of any signs of an adverse illness before it happens. When you go to the emergency room, you need to try to recall as much as you can from the previous few days. This will help your doctor determine what is wrong based on the symptoms you may have noticed beforehand.
The above are just a few things that would be good to keep prepared in case you ever have to make a trip to the emergency room with your child. If at all possible, you can also find a family member or friend to send home to collect the information while you wait in urgent pediatric care. This makes it even more important to keep relevant information in a place that is easy to access.