Injury Prevention Takes the Front Seat in Los Angeles County

March 3, 2008

The trauma department’s Injury Prevention branch at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) is on the move! On Monday, the 3rd of March, CHLA hosted a county wide ‘kick off’ event at the Center for Healthy Families, California Endowment. Representatives from various organizations came together in an effort to build relationships while brainstorming on injury prevention projects that could be rolled out across the county of Los Angeles.

Founded in 1901, CHLA is located in a densely populated urban area with an estimated population of 10 million people, 1/3rd of which are children 14 years and under. CHLA has an open catchment area that includes the entire 4,000 square miles and is the only free standing children’s hospital that is a Level 1 pediatric trauma center in Los Angeles County. In 2005 the hospital served over 102,000 patients who made more than 285,000 visits to the hospital and to our community sites. These numbers are an average of what occurs annually.

Considering the economic squeeze occurring worldwide, the necessity to partner in order to find funding and move forward was apparent to all. The room was energized and all participated with excitement of the possibilities that will spring forward from the day’s event. The County was well represented by stakeholders from Kaiser West L.A., Harbor UCLA, Peace Builders, LAUSD, Rady Children’s Hospital, Safe Moves, Office of Councilmember Richard Alarcon, Great Beginnings for Black Babies, Los Angeles Fire Department, California Poison Control, LAC EMS Agency, Shriners Hospital, Altamed, Department of Children Family Services, and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

Next step will be to reunite back at the California Endowment Center in three to four months to map out our mutually picked project; develop a plan of action, time line and determine the who, what, where and when’s of rolling out the County wide Injury Prevention Project with the goal of making L.A. a safer place for children to grow and thrive.

We are also building our two coalitions, Safe Kids Worldwide and Injury Free Coalition for Kids in order to decrease the number of deaths and permanent disabilities in our children through prevention messages, interventions, education, community outreach and research into new methodologies to address this pressing problem. CHLA is stepping out as leaders locally, regionally and nationally with a goal to be the best in acute injury care and in Injury Prevention!

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Chris Jordan-Morrow MPH/CHES, MS/CNS, RNC
323-361-4897