Transcription:

Bill Klaproth (Host): Whether you child has a chronic illness requiring multiple hospital visits or anxiety about a routine blood draw; Pullman Regional has a pediatric care coordinator for all issues and concerns. So, let’s learn more about this important position with Catherine Wilkins, a board-certified pediatric nurse and the pediatric care coordinator at Pullman Regional Hospital. Catherine, thank you so much for your time. Let me start with this. What is your role as a pediatric care coordinator?

Catherine Wilkins BSN, RN, CEN, CPEN (Guest): Thank you Bill and thanks for having me. My role actually has several areas of focus, I guess. I think first and foremost I want to say that I’m a nurse. So, my work is mostly clinically based. Sometimes I’m working in direct patient care with our pediatric patients and sometimes more indirectly in the oversight of the care. I work as a resource and support person, a contact person maybe for families and staff. I also work with local family practice providers and pediatricians working to coordinate our care and services for our kids that we see here. And then I also have the opportunity to work with Sacred Heart Children’s Hospital up in Spokane with the children that we share in our services.

Host: Yeah, you interface with just about everybody on the care team. So, let me ask you this. what types of things do you help children and families with?

Catherine: Specifically with children, I think that coming to the hospital or having situations that they might come even if it’s minor reason creates anxiety or can be scary. So, we know that through research, using distraction and other techniques can reduce the trauma of those experiences for kids. So, implementing those techniques hospital-wide has been a huge priority for me in this role.

And then for parents and families, my priority for them is to keep them actively involved in the process and care of their child. I use them to help engage and the distraction process or comfort positioning if we are doing a procedure or an intervention with a child. But I also like to seek out their input and opinions for the care because they are truly the experts on their child and in my role, I am able to kind of rely on them to help guide the care and the best options for their child.

And then I also like to be a resource to the family whether it’s simply answering a question or helping navigate maybe a confusing process for outpatient procedures or even a lab draw, or I can even assist just by actively caring for their child while they are here.

Host: So, you’ve got a lot to do. So, I love how you said that. A trip to the hospital can be scary and create anxiety for the little ones. As a father of two, I certainly understand that. And then you keep parents actively involved I think which is great and then you are an overall resource it sounds like for the care team. So, you mentioned a couple of times distraction techniques. What are some of the distraction techniques that you use to help put kids at ease?

Catherine: Yeah, distractions are a really exciting thing to talk about because over the course of my nursing career, I’ve gone from experiences where distraction wasn’t used in taking care of kids to now it really being recognized because of research, with the care of kids and how valuable it is. But it is so easy and fun, and it makes such a huge difference in the overall outcome in these experiences with kids.

We use, we can use an iPad on whether it’s engaging a child in watching something that we can kind of talk about the show or what they are looking at or sometimes it can be an interactive game where they actually have to do things on the iPad. Sometimes it’s singing, looking at books, by books I love the I Spy books where they actually have to really think about what they are looking at in the picture. We can do bubbles, pinwheels, sometimes toys that they actually have to touch or do something with can be distracting. And out most recent addition to our distraction tool kit is the use of virtual reality which we are really excited to have on board.

But my favorite part of all of these techniques has been watching these kids and families leaving with smiles and high fives instead of tears. So, it just always feels like a huge win for everyone, every time.

Host: So, the distraction then, you are just trying to take their mind off of what’s happening, right, so they are not thinking about who is this person about to do something to me. They are thinking about something else.

Catherine: Exactly. And we also utilize comfort positioning and there’s lots of different techniques for that. But instead of kind of the old ways of holding a child down and going in there and getting a procedure done; we use like hugging and other things while they are being secured by the parent. They don’t really realize they are also being somewhat restrained. So, it works out really well and then the distractions going on, on the other side of whatever the procedure is. So, it just works really, really well.

Host: Yeah, this is really cool. So, can anyone with a child utilize the service?

Catherine: Oh yes, absolutely. Of course. Anytime a parent or family feels that they would like or need my support in their care, not matter what it is, if it’s just answering a question or whether it’s me being actively involved in navigating a process or even helping take care of their child, they can contact me.

Host: So for an interested parent, how can they get in contact with you?

Catherine: So, I have regular office hours at Pullman Regional Hospital. I can be reached either by email or phone. If the request is urgent, and I’m either not at the hospital or not readily answering their message; the hospital clinical coordinators are able to contact me.

Host: I think you have the coolest job there.

Catherine: I’m pretty lucky. I get to work with kids all the time. It’s the best job in the world.

Host: Well that it certainly is. Catherine, thank you for your time and for more information please visit www.pullmanregional.org, that’s www.pullmanregional.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out our full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is the Health Podcast from Pullman Regional. I’m Bill Klaproth. Thanks for listening.