Atrium Health Levine Children’s Brenner Children’s Hospital in Winston-Salem has become the first and only children’s hospital in North Carolina to join the Injury Free Coalition for Kids.
The Injury Free Coalition for Kids is based at Columbia University’s Center for Injury Epidemiology and Prevention and includes a network of more than 40 sites across the country at prominent children’s hospitals and pediatric trauma centers.
Every independent and physician-led site creates programs and interventions tailored to the needs of each community, with one common mission: to prevent injury to children. The Injury Free Coalition for Kids at Brenner Children’s Hospital will be dedicated to combating the most common childhood injuries affecting the region served by the children’s hospital.
“We are honored to join the coalition which will enable us to collaborate with other centers across the country and continue to expand our injury prevention and community outreach programs,” said Dr. Rebecca Palmer, the medical director of the program at Atrium Health Levine Children’s Brenner Children’s Hospital.
“I am grateful to our entire team who is dedicated to working with community partners to help families across our region keep children safe, but when injuries do occur, we are always ready to provide the highest level of compassionate care to our young patients and their loved ones,” said Palmer, who is also a pediatrician at Brenner Children’s Hospital and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Wake Forest University School of Medicine.
Brenner Children’s Hospital is the Triad region’s only children’s hospital, pediatric emergency department, Level I children’s surgery center and Level I pediatric trauma center, a distinction it has held since 2011 when it became the first Level I pediatric trauma center in North Carolina.
As part of a long-standing commitment to injury prevention for children, Brenner Children’s Hospital has sponsored and coordinated the regional Safe Kids Northwest Piedmont coalition for nearly 25 years, working with 80 community partners to provide pediatric injury prevention education and distribute safety equipment primarily in the areas of child passenger safety, bicycle safety, pedestrian safety, home safety and fire prevention.
“We have a robust pediatric injury prevention program and are excited for the opportunity to enhance our efforts to reduce firearm injury among children through researched and effective methods of other pediatric trauma centers as well as those developed by Brenner Children’s Hospital,” said Hayluri (Luly) Beckles, the pediatric injury prevention coordinator for both coalitions.
Media contacts: Jenna Kurzyna, jkurzyna@wakehealth.edu; Joe McCloskey, jmcclosk@wakehealth.edu