What is EMSC?

In the late 1970s, Calvin Sia, MD, president of the Hawaii Medical Association, urged members of the American Academy of Pediatrics to develop EMS programs that would reduce illness and death in children. Dr. Sia worked with U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI) to generate legislation for an initiative. With the help of Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Lowell Weicker (R-CT) this Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Program was passed into law in 1984.

The EMSC National Goal Statement

The EMSC Program aims to ensure that emergency medical care for the ill and injured child or adolescent is well integrated into an emergency medical service system. We work to ensure the system is backed by optimal resources and the entire spectrum of emergency services (prevention, acute care, and rehabilitation) is provided to children and adolescents, regardless of where they live, attend school, or travel.

So what does Utah EMSC Offer?

Pediatric Education

When a provider is submitting a renewal application they must meet the requirements for each level as listed below. For more information on these rules check out the Utah EMS Education Update

• EMD, EMR, EMT: BLS CPR
• AEMT: BLS CPR, Peds Education
• Paramedic: BLS CPR, Peds Education, and ACLS

Pediatric Focused Monthly Newsletter

You’re reading it! We try to provide trending pediatric information to help you care for kids. This is a free, digital monthly bathroom read. A quick review of the latest and greatest in pediatrics. We want to hear about your pediatric experiences, teaching points, and perspectives. We invite submissions from our readers. Simply send them to Tia Dickson (tdickson@utah.gov) Please feel free to reproduce, forward, and link the newsletter to anyone who may find it beneficial.

PETOS our Pediatric Emergency and Trauma Outreach Series

These are pediatric lectures for EMS and include face time with PCH attending physicians. These lectures occur on the 2nd Monday of each month from 2-3 p.m. You may attend in person or watch the webinar. It will qualify for pediatric CME from the Utah Department of Health Bureau of EMS and Preparedness. Access https://intermountainhealthcare.org/locations/primary-childrens-hospital/classes-events/petos/

Pediatric Toolboxes

We want to encourage you to teach pediatrics more often and we want to make it easy for you! EMSC has produced several Pediatric Toolboxes. These are basically a lesson plan in a box. All the elements of a training right at your finger tips. Email Tia Dickson (tdickson@utah.gov) and request a toolbox. We will give you access to them housed as a Google Docx. Each lesson is two hours and includes 30 minutes of prep work and an hour and a half in class. They qualify for two free Bureau-approved CMEs.

Beginning in 1999, Utah EMSC established what is known as the EMSC Coordinator Program. We wanted to create a pool of EMS Instructors who could promote pediatrics through:

1. Teaching and coordinating educational programs
2. Promoting and conducting injury prevention activities.

Through our EMSC Coordinators we disseminate pediatric education throughout the state. They are experts within your own communities who have direct access to Primary Children’s Hospital resources, pediatric equipment, and additional pediatric training. We try to maintain two Coordinators in each county. Do you know who your EMSC Coordinator is? Contact my Coordinator

Are you Interested in joining our team?

If you are a pediatric advocate within your agency, we need you. Please contact our program manager, Brianne Glenn (brianneglenn@utah.gov) to find out how you can help.

In each of our EMSC newsletters we highlight a protocol guideline to care for the topic we are focusing on each month. 2020 will be the 3rd update of the guidelines.

Protocol Guidelines

These Utah State EMS Protocol Guidelines were developed for the Utah Bureau of EMS and Preparedness by a panel of physicians, EMS medical directors, pediatric emergency medicine specialists, paramedics, and EMTs in order to provide EMS agencies with a set of up-to-date treatment guidelines and standing orders. These guidelines were developed utilizing current best medical evidence and the expert consensus of the development panel. They incorporated information from the National Model EMS Clinical Guidelines (www.nasemso.org), feedback from the State EMS Committee, the Trauma Systems Advisory Committee, and multiple EMS medical directors and EMS providers from around the state.

The use of these guidelines by individual EMS agencies is voluntary, but encouraged. Agencies may adopt them fully as written or may use them as a reference to develop their own protocols and standing orders. As more agencies throughout the state adopt similar guidelines, EMS care statewide will become more uniform, allowing for simplified on-line medical direction by receiving hospitals, simplified mutual aid between agencies, and, ultimately, improved patient care.

These guidelines will be updated regularly to remain current and to reflect the most current EMS research. Your input is welcome and encouraged.

For questions regarding these guidelines, please contact Dr. Peter Taillac, Medical Director of the Bureau of EMS and Preparedness at ptaillac@utah.gov. For EMS Medical Directors who would like a version of these in Microsoft Word format, please contact Dr. Taillac directly.

tdickson@utah.gov

Help improve your agency and emergency department’s readiness to take care of pediatric patients and participate in a national quality improvement project!

The national EMS for Children program, with the help of the National EMSC Data Analysis Research Center (NEDARC), will be launching two national surveys in 2020.

The 2020 EMS Annual Data Collection started on January 7, 2020. The survey for your state is now be open for respondents at emscsurveys.org. This survey asks basic demographic information about each agency including number of staff, level of certification, annual number of calls, number of pediatric calls, as well as critical information about whether your agency has a Pediatric Champion or Pediatric Emergency Care Coordinator (PECC). It will also ask what kind and how often agencies do skills checking on pediatric equipment. Please helpensure someone in your agency completes this survey. It is important for us to see how Utah agencies are doing in general and how we compare with similar agencies across the country.

The data collection will run through March 31, 2020.

On June 1, 2020, the National Pediatric Readiness Project will launch the 2020 Assessment. This assessment will be sent to nurse managers and medical directors of all emergency departments across the country to evaluate structural processes and policies in place to be ready for pediatric patients. Those who take the assessment will get immediate feedback with a gap report comparing your score with previous scores (if taken in the past) and comparing you with similar emergency departments across the country. These scores have been linked to outcomes such as mortality from critical illness, and participation in the project is very important for the Utah Department of Health to better understand the state of pediatric preparedness in Utah.

The National EMSC resources are available to all and can be found at this website

https://emscimprovement.center/