(New York Times) – If every emergency room in the United States were fully prepared to treat children, thousands of lives would be saved and the cost would be $11.84 or less per child, researchers found.

More than 80 percent of emergency departments in United States hospitals are not fully prepared for pediatric cases, a new study finds, despite the fact that children make up about 20 percent of visits each year.

The new analysis, published Friday in the journal JAMA Network Open, estimated that if every emergency department in the United States had the core features of “pediatric readiness,” more than a quarter of the child deaths that follow E.R. visits could be prevented, a figure that equates to thousands of young lives each year. (Read More)