Overview
Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego is the sole children’s hospital in the Greater San Diego Area providing 24-hour care to infants, children, and young adults. Our service area extends north to Los Angeles/Riverside and east encompassing parts of Arizona. The original Emergency Department (ED) established in 1993 consisted of 25 beds and was built to meet an annual census of 25,000 to 30,000 patients. Fast forward to today, our ED is a 42-bed, Level 1 Trauma center with an annual census of over 100,000 patients.
Our Values
Rady Children’s, a place where we demonstrate CARES values with patients, families, visitors, the community, and our team members.
- Compassion
- Accountability
- Respect
- Excellence
- Service
As San Diego’s designated pediatric trauma center, children may be coming in through alternate entrances by helicopter, ambulance, or the CHET (Children’s Hospital Emergency Transport) team, requiring the staff to focus attention on those most critically ill or injured. Please know we are doing our best to provide the highest quality care as quickly as possible. The safety and wellbeing of your child is our top priority.
What to Expect at our Emergency Department
A trip to the Emergency Department (ED) can be an anxious and confusing time. To help you know what to expect during your visit, we have provided answers to some commonly asked questions!
What is Triage?
Triage is a French word meaning “sort”. In the ED, the triage process determines which patient needs to be treated first. When you arrive at the ED, the triage nurse will evaluate your symptoms, vital signs, medical history, and current medications. This process allows for the more unstable patients to be seen first, even though they may arrive at the ED after other patients. Wait times are difficult to predict due to multiple variables and changing environment of the department, therefore we are unable to provide wait times.
What’s Next?
After triage you may be placed in the waiting room or a treatment room, depending upon the severity of your child’s illness. If you are asked to wait in the waiting room, it is important that you make us aware of any changes in the condition of your child (e.g., pain, difficulty breathing, or vomiting). Please do not allow patient to eat or drink anything until checking with the triage nurse.
What happens in the treatment area?
In the exam room, you will be examined by our team including nurses, physicians and/or respiratory therapists that are specialists in pediatric emergency medicine. Lab tests and imaging may be performed to help diagnose your child’s condition. Your treatment may take several hours depending on your illness, injury, or presence of other unstable patients.
What Happens When You Go Home?
Once the physician discharges your child, a discharge summary will be printed and provided by your bedside nurse, going over your child’s diagnosis, interventions, medications, prescriptions, signs & symptoms to look for in the future, along with a review of follow up care. A detailed report of your visit will be provided to your child’s primary care physician through MyChart.
Visitor Guidelines
For the health, safety and security of your child and other patients, only 2 parents/guardians are allowed at bedside with patients. In some instances, we may need to limit the number of parents/guardians at the bedside further. Siblings are prohibited unless no alternative childcare is available.
Safety
Rady Children’s has a Zero-Tolerance policy for the following behaviors:
- Engaging in disruptive behavior or violent actions such as yelling, swearing, slurs (including racial, ethical, religious, and gender identity or expression or sexual orientation), physical threats or attacks on others.
- Taking photos recordings or videos of staff, equipment, procedure, or any non-family member.
- Using or possessing illegal drugs, alcohol, recreational marijuana, or tobacco.
- Possessing a weapon or other contraband.
- Conducting activities that are inappropriately sexual in nature—physical or verbal.
- Tampering with medical equipment or interfering with patient care.
If you violate these guidelines or cause any other safety concern the security team will be called, and you may be asked to leave the facility.