Marie Oren-Sosebee, BSN, RN, CWOCN1, Megan Reese, BSN, RN, CWOCN2, and Trish Burdett, BSN, RN, CWOCN2. (1) Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Clinical Staff Development Coordinator, 2947 Shady Creek Lane, Marietta, GA 30062, (2) Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Wound, Ostomy & Continence Nurse, 1001 Johnson Ferry Road NE, Atlanta, GA 30342
Background:
Children
coping with persistent health deficits do not inherently know how to cope with
these limitations. The technology that saved these children is now required to
sustain them, making their life care more complicated and costly. Currently,
due to the lack of resources, many of these stable, but medically fragile
children spend months and years in a hospital room or adult nursing home. The
Dream House for Medically Fragile Children, Inc. (Atlanta, Georgia) is a non-profit organization dedicated to establishing resources needed to get medically
fragile children out of institutions, save them from neglectful and abusive
situations, and give them the home, family, and future they need to live. They
provide educational programs and unique teaching environments for families and
caregivers, assist in the development of specially equipped homes, increase
community awareness about the needs of medically fragile children, and create
opportunities for partnerships focused on improving the quality of life for
medically fragile children and their families. In 2007, the Children's
Healthcare of Atlanta WOC Nurse Department partnered with the Dream House to
develop a 6-hour community-based advanced skills class and curriculum designed
to provide ostomy care information and training for families, caregivers, and
those training to be foster or adoptive families of medically fragile children
with ostomies. Objectives:
1.
To create a stimulating 6-hour community-based pediatric ostomy training class
designed to equip kinship, caregiver, foster, and adoptive families with the
skills needed to care for a medically fragile infant, toddler, child, or adolescent
with a fecal and/or urinary ostomy 2.
To communicate anatomy and physiology, stomal construction, medical diagnosis, ostomy
care and assessment, troubleshooting, and resource education effectively in
caring medically fragile babies and children with ostomies3.
To implement return demonstration competency training of ostomy care with
infant, pediatric, and adolescent ostomy pouching systems
