| April 19, 2004
MGHS awarded grant to improve child passenger safety in the U.P.
Marquette
General Health System is the proud recipient of a grant from
the State and Territorial Injury
Prevention Directors Association (STIPDA) that seeks to improve child passenger
safety in the Upper Peninsula. The National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) is providing direct grant funding.
The grant will provide monies for a number of initiatives to help boost the
proper use of child car seats, especially in the area of newborn discharges
from Upper Peninsula hospitals.
Gary Gustafson, MGHS EMS Paramedic/RN, said the grant will expand a number
of opportunities to improve child passenger safety in the U.P., as well as
create the potential for other safety and prevention initiatives within each
community.
According to Gustafson, the grant was one of only approximately 10 that were
awarded throughout the United States by STIPDA. The intent is to help create
new partnerships between the EMS community and other injury prevention groups.
“With our continuing steps to improve newborn discharges from MGHS, we
felt it was extremely important to offer other hospital personnel and EMS staff
within the Upper Peninsula. the same opportunity,” Gustafson said.
In conjunction with staff from U.P. hospitals offering obstetrical services,
staff in the EMS community in the U.P. will be given the opportunity to attend
a 40-hour NHTSA car seat technician training program slated for May at MGHS.
The training program, Gustafson said, will assist in the development of a collaborative
approach between hospital staff and EMS personnel to assure that newborns being
discharged from the hospital to home are properly restrained.
“By working as a team and providing both support and resources,” Gustafson
said, “more babies will leave area hospitals properly restrained, reducing
the potential for needless injury and death if involved in a crash.”
Connie Koutouzos, Program Director for the MGHS Women & Children’s
Center, was instrumental in bringing the training program to the U.P. She believes
that providing new parents education on proper car seat use should be part
of the infant’s discharge plan.
The development of a regional child passenger safety coalition, Gustafson said,
hopes to address the overall status of child passenger safety in the Upper
Peninsula, and to offer assistance to other communities to achieve the goal
of improved safety for children on area roads.
Child passenger safety information will be incorporated onto the MGHS website,
and links with other resources to help educate parents and caregivers about
the importance of proper child restraint.
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