'safety' posts

January 21-22

• All campuses and locations are expected to have normal operations.

Information for Friday, January 20

• Due to weather, the continuing medical education conference Advances in Neuromodulation 2012: Current State of the Art and Emerging Indications has been cancelled.

• As of 5:00 pm, main hospital campuses and emergency departments are operating and will operate as scheduled on Friday, January 20. Any known exceptions (a few late starts for some primary care and specialty clinics) are noted below. Ballard Primary Care plans to stay open late as the road conditions improve and it is safer to drive so we can accomodate any patients in the community who need  care prior to the weekend.
  

• The following classes are cancelled on Friday, January 20: First Hill Sibling Preparation at 2:00pm and Newborn Preparation at 3:00pm; and Ballard Birth Center Tours at 4:00pm, 5:30pm, and 7:00pm. All scheduled Edmonds classes are also cancelled.

• All Minor & James clinics open at 10am. Please call the clinics directly if you have any questions or need to reschedule your appointment. See a list of clinic phone numbers here.

• If you are experiencing a power outage, stay safe. Prevent poisoning from carbon monoxide: Only use generators outdoors and far from open windows and vents. Never use generators or portable propane heaters indoors, in garages or carports. Never cook or heat inside on charcoal or gas grills. More information.

If we get additional weather notices or operational updates, we'll keep you posted here in this blog post and on Facebook.

Updates from Thursday, January 19

• 11:45 - Somebody wrote a note (by hand!) and handed it to the security team at First Hill. It reads:
  "To whom it may concern, we arrived about 6am for surgery scheduled for 9am. A big thank you & great job to all of the workers out there in the freezing rain keeping the sidewalks clear. They have been going non-stop since we arrived."
  We agree  - a big thank you again to all of our staff, employees, physicians, and nurses - and others in the city and surrounding areas working to keep the streets and sidewalks safe and passable!

Have you been outside enjoying this weekend's snow fall?. Whether or not you were able to play outside, we thought we'd share some new videos in our robotic surgery series that don't require going out in the cold..and might give you inspiration of a craft project to do with your kids.

In Seattle, we can make a snowman:

And not only can our robots (driven by our robotic surgeons)
fold paper airplanes, but they can also make a snowflake:

When pilots train they learn from a book, and then simulators, then by riding in the co-pilot’s seat. It’s a progression of information that’s built upon the comprehension of the previous set of knowledge learned.

Driving a car is no different. It is not recommended, and by Washington State Law not allowed, that children ride in the front seat until the age of 13 years old. This has to do with the bone structure and how it develops after we go through puberty; how the seatbelt holds onto said bone structure and the fact that in the front seat, in a front-end collision, the engine block is being shoved into the passenger compartment. This is a very safe, reasonable recommendations for keeping kids safe in a car.

If a child starts riding in the front seat at the age of 13 years, they will have 2 to 3 years worth of observation before they start driving the vehicles themselves...unless they’re looking at screens.
Years ago, we started putting DVD players and game systems into vehicles to keep kids happy and occupied. Smartphones, iPods, iPads, and all other handheld entertainment systems have followed those kids up to the front seat, once they were old enough to sit there.

The problem lies with the fact that they’re not learning from observation. The parents are probably not having conversations about ...

So, here we are again. Right in the middle of the holiday season. This beautiful time of year when we have extra lights and candles and glass ornaments decorating the house. Regardless of which, if any, holidays you and your family celebrate, chances are your child will be exposed to pretty, new, shiny things to discover.
When you’re decorating, and you have crawlers or toddlers in the house (whether they’re yours or they’re visiting), you’ll want to take certain precautions to protect both the babes and the pretty decor.

Once you decorate, crawl around on your knees and investigate the world from that angle.

• Look for low hanging glass or breakable ornaments and move them higher. Put unbreakable ornaments on the lower branches and make sure they are not hung with metal hooks. A loop of ribbon can work instead.
• Look for dangling extension cords and lights that the child could reach. Sometimes just sliding a piece of furniture over a couple of inches in front of the cords is all you need.
• Look for tablecloths that could be pulled down, causing plates and centerpieces to fall.
• Look for easy access to holiday plants. Poinsettias are not as poisonous as people think. It takes....

Winter’s here and just a little more than a week away will be winter break for most of our kids. If we’re lucky enough we’ll get a chance to get out and play in the snow.

Skiing, snowboarding, sledding, or a good old-fashioned snowball fight sound like a family memory waiting to happen. Let’s make sure it’s happy memories we’re creating not a regretful ones.

Most parents these days grew up in the time where we didn’t wear helmets when riding bikes much less on the slopes, but what we know now about Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) will make you think twice about sliding off the ski lift without one on.

Traveling with children can be loads of fun but it also poses challenges that can test even the calmest of parents.

The safest way for your child to travel is in their car seat, even if they’re on a plane.

If there is a sudden change in trajectory, that 5-point harness will be able to hold onto the child better. We have a much better probability of surviving a crash (and less injury) if we stay where we’re seated. If we’re flinging around the inside of a car or plane, our chances of injury or death are increased.

Children are at a disadvantage because they’re lighter weight and have much more flexible cartilige than they do rigid bone because of all the growing that they have to do. That means that the 5-point harness that the car seats use hold in that little flexible body way better than just a 3-point seatbelt would. (A 3-point seatbelt is a standard lap-shoulder seatbelt), or a 2-point (lap belt) on a plane.

Let’s go back to the How do You Catch a Raw Egg demonstration.

Every family is unique, but those families who have grandparents who live nearby or are involved in their children’s lives are lucky. It somehow seems just a bit brighter for kids who get to be regaled in stories of long ago, those stories about when mom or dad was a child.

However, some of you with grandparents nearby might wish there was a bit more distance between your house and theirs.

When a baby is born, we have a new baby, new parents, and new grandparents. Our roles have all instantly changed. The new grandparents can be a wealth of information. They have amassed 20, 30, or 40 years of parenting experience. Everything from infants to teens to parenting adults. It’s only natural that they now want to share with you everything that they’ve learned. (They also might want to try to correct what they believe are mistakes that they made as parents.)

The most important thing that new parents need is: