After Hours & Emergencies
After Hours and Emergencies
Emergencies
Emergencies are considered to be those conditions that are life-threatening: loss of consciousness, severe bleeding, seizure, etc. In the case of minor emergencies (lacerations, cuts, mild fractures, sprains), please call our office first for instructions.
IF AN EMERGENCY SHOULD ARISE, PLEASE CALL 911.
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After Hours:
If your child is experiencing a medical EMERGENCY (see examples below), you should go immediately to the Emergency Deparment or call 911.
For patients under 18 years of age, we recommend St. Mary’s Medical Center, HCA Florida Palms West Hospital, and Bethesda Memorial Hospital, all of which have pediatric-specific emergency departments.
If your child is experiencing a new URGENT condition when the office is closed, or you feel your child's condition cannot wait to be assessed until the office opens (see examples below), please call, and leave a brief voicemail or text the office using your Spruce app and your message will be returned promptly, usually by Dr. Garofalo or R.N. Ramon L Sanchez.
Suppose your child has an URGENT medical need that cannot wait until our office opens but is not an emergency. In that case, you may wish to utilize urgent care (though we recommend first reviewing the resources on our website and/ or contacting the office to help better determine if visiting an urgent care center is necessary). If urgent care is needed after hours, we prefer sites that offer pediatric-specific care and staff pediatricians on site. Emergency Departments should be reserved for true medical emergencies.
URGENT CARE:
6250 Lantana Rd Ste 12, Lake Worth, FL 33463
(561) 963-4874
Monday – Friday: 1 pm – 11 pm
Saturday & Sunday: 1 pm – 11 pm
For NON-URGENT questions or concerns (see examples below), we are happy to address these during open business hours, or you can send us a message anytime via your portal. We will return these messages as soon as possible, typically in less than 24 hours. Please call or text us via the Spruce app when we are open for scheduling questions. Please do not send scheduling questions via text after hours--texting is to be used for urgent matters only when the office is closed.
EMERGENT MEDICAL CONDITIONS:
Examples include (but are not limited to): unconsciousness/ unresponsiveness, new seizure, altered mental status (confused, not making sense, disoriented), severe shortness of breath or difficulty breathing (child’s ribs are showing with breathing, making unusual sounds when breathing, breathing is much faster than usual, child has difficulty speaking or appears scared), infant under 3 months of age with fever 100.4 F or higher, severe injury (including uncontrolled bleeding, deep wound, severe pain, concern for broken bone or joint dislocation), severe abdominal pain (crying, wincing, cannot stand up straight), severe/ excruciating headache not improved with over-the-counter medication, suicidal gesture.
URGENT MEDICAL CONDITIONS:
Examples include (but are not limited to): shortness of breath without features of “severe” above, slightly faster breathing, multiple episodes of vomiting, moderate abdominal pain (child cannot participate in usual activities due to pain), moderate injury (laceration with controlled bleeding but may need stitches, musculoskeletal injury with moderate pain), suicidal thoughts.
NON-URGENT MEDICAL CONDITIONS:
Examples include (but are not limited to): chronic medical issue (has been going on weeks or months without sudden severe worsening), mild injuries without bleeding or severe features as above, mild pain, fever without other concerning features above in children OVER 3 months of age, medication refills, scheduling appointments.
A SIDE NOTE ABOUT FEVER:
Fever is your friend! Really? Yes! Fever is our body’s way of fighting off infection and usually it is a GOOD thing! If, however, the fever is causing your child discomfort then you should treat the symptoms accordingly with ibuprofen (Motrin/ Advil--if over 6 months old) or acetaminophen (Tylenol--if over 3 months old). For children over 3 months of age there is no specific temperature that would necessitate a trip to the Emergency Department--we assess your child's overall condition and if you feel that your child is seriously ill or has other concerning symptoms associated with the fever, please call us immediately.
If your child is under 2 months old and has a temperature of 100.4 F or higher you should go immediately to the Emergency Department as young infants can sometimes have more serious causes for fever.
Generally, we prefer to see your child in our office though sometimes urgent care centers can be appropriate for evaluating and treating injuries, including lacerations (cuts) and musculoskeletal injuries (broken bones, sprains).
On-Call Providers
At Pediatric Dream Care we recognize that not all medical problems occur between 8am-5pm but we are still here to help! We provide 24/7 direct physician coverage for URGENT medical needs.
Dr. Garofalo is usually available herself for urgent after-hours concerns during the week.
Our website has a wonderful feature of a “symptom checker” that provides the same great advice used by pediatric phone triage nurses. This is often a great resource to start with to help determine the most appropriate course of action if you are unsure whether your child needs immediate care or if there are steps you can take at home first.
The best way to contact us after hours for URGENT medical concerns is by using the free Spruce app which you should have already downloaded on your phone when completing the registration process. This will allow you to communicate with the on-call physician confidentially on a HIPAA compliant platform and will also easily allow the use of telemedicine if needed.