Keeping Your Child Safe

You are a member of your child’s healthcare team and you know your child best. Please speak up any time you have a question.

Tell Us Anything You Want to About:

• Your child’s symptoms
• Your child’s medications
• Your child’s medical history
• Your child’s allergies (food or medicine)
• Anything you feel is important to your child’s care

Ask Us Anything You Want to About:

• Your child’s medicines
• Your child’s medical equipment
• Your child’s caregivers and their names
• Anything that doesn’t feel right about your child’s care

Other Ways to Keep Your Child Safe:

• Know that you can speak to your doctor at any time
• Make sure you and your child wear your ID bands at all times
• Give us a list of your child’s medications
• Put up crib rails and side rails
• Ask a nurse before giving your child food or taking your child out of the room
• Ask your doctors, nurses and other staff for their names and what they’re doing
• Report any problems your child is having
• Keep the room clear of clutter for your child's safety and so that the Environmental Services staff can thoroughly clean the room
• Let us know if you leave the floor

Family Activated Rapid Safety Team

As part of our commitment to your child’s health and safety, Lurie Children’s has developed a team to address your medical concerns while your child is in the hospital. This team provides an additional layer of safety for your child.

While we hope you never need to call, this team is one of the ways we provide an extra layer of safety for your child. Be sure to let us know if you have any questions or concerns.

If you have additional questions about the program, please ask your nurse.

Partnering to Help Reduce the Risk of Infection

Washing Hands

• Wash or gel your hands when you enter your child’s room
• Wash your hands with soap and water after changing your child’s diaper
• Tell us if your caregiver is not cleaning his/her hands
• Have your child wash his/her hands before each meal and after using the bathroom
• Make sure your visitors — adults and kids, including siblings — wash/gel their hands before entering your child’s room

Stopping the Spread of Germs

• Cover your nose and mouth or your child’s nose and mouth with a tissue if you or your  child coughs or sneezes
• Promptly throw the tissue in the trash and clean your hands
• Use the crook of your arm if tissue is not available
• Do not let individuals who are ill (cough, runny nose, fever, vomiting, diarrhea, or rash), or have been recently exposed to someone who is ill, visit your child
• Notify your child’s caregivers immediately if you become ill — so your child and other children in the same area can be protected
• Follow all signs for infection control posted outside your child’s hospital room
• Children under the age of 12 may not visit patients in isolation
• Do not allow family/ friends to touch your child’s catheters, other tubes, dressings, or wounds

Keeping Clean

• Make sure that blankets, stuffed animals, or other patient items from home are clean or recently washed
• Follow your nurses’ specific instructions if your child is going to surgery —usually, the instructions request that you bathe or clean your child before going to surgery