Mercy Children's Hospital

Services - Pediatric Intensive Care (PICU)

Sedation for Ambulatory Procedures

The unique needs of children in the medical setting often requires that they be sedated in order to assure quality studies. Many diagnostic or therapeutic procedures may require periods of immobility or cause discomfort are essential components of the management of children’s illnesses. Maintaining immobility and keeping the child comfortable in a safe environment are key components to getting these studies completed.

Mercy Children’s Hospital has a sedation team, consisting of pediatric critical care nurses trained in PALS, airway management, and use of hypnosedative medications; and pediatric critical care physicians, trained to manage sedation in children from infancy through early adulthood.

This service is unique to the region including northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. It has established an added dimension of patient safety for such procedures that is not found elsewhere, and also provides flexibility in sedation and anesthesia techniques not found in any other area hospital or ambulatory center. The service provided is on a par with similar services in regional quaternary care children’s hospitals, but much closer to home.

If a child requires sedation for an ambulatory procedure (either diagnostic or therapeutic), just a single telephone call from the ordering physician’s office to Mercy St Vincent Medical Center central scheduling (419-251-3663) is needed to set things up. The ordering physician’s office should let the scheduler know that the patient will require sedation. Thereafter, the sedation team will manage everything else, including establishment of arrival times and fasting duration, with the patient’s family.