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What is the....Emergency Medical Services for Children Program?
Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) is a national initiative designed to reduce child and youth disability and death due to severe illness and injury. Medical personnel, parents and volunteers, community groups and businesses, and national organizations and foundations all contribute to the effort. A federal grant program supports Arizona’s initiatives. EMSC is an essential component of Emergency Medical Services or EMS systems.
Why is this program needed?
Children are not "small adults." The ill or injured child has very special needs and requires a different approach to care. Emergency care providers must be trained, not only to recognize the different ways that children's bodies respond to traumatic injury and illness, but also to communicate and comfort these children and their families effectively. Since the 1970’s, National EMSC has been improving the quality and availability of emergency care specifically for children. There is a very large range of skill and experience in hospitals, emergency personnel, and first responders in the emergency care of children in Arizona. EMSC offers consistent, coordinated, and high quality child emergency care training throughout Arizona to those who respond to child emergencies.
What are the goals of the program?
Arizona EMSC goals are:
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To improve the quality,
safety availability, and consistency of child emergency medical care throughout Arizona
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To provide ongoing
assessment of the pediatric emergency medical services delivery system
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To develop curriculum for child emergency care training that is effective, sustainable, portable, and can be replicated whenever needed
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To develop and disseminate pediatric protocols for emergency care in Arizona in order to promote regular, high quality emergency care of children
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To work with providers to
collect pre-hospital electronics data
What has the program achieved?
Through a partnership demonstration grant from National Emergency Medical Services for Children, the Pediatric Emergencies for
Pre-hospital Professionals
(PEPP) Distance Learning Project was completed. The development of distance-learning methodologies was selected in an effort to mitigate distance-to-training barriers, which were identified by prehospital agencies as a major barrier to education. Video presentations of the didactic portion of the American Academy of Pediatric’s PEPP Basic Life Support curriculum have been developed to deliver to emergency personnel. The training is designed to be offered through video instruction and scenarios, followed by direct observation and guidance. The training has proven to be efficient, affordable and available. Evaluation of information retention using this training design will be performed during the grant period.
Four complete sets of training equipment and supplies for skill practice and demonstration have been purchased and are stored in sites across the state to facilitate availability.
Over 200 prehospital professionals have been trained in PEPP throughout Arizona.
Although EMSC has made great progress over the years, much remains to be done to ensure children receive optimal emergency medical care. Future plans include:
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Implementing injury prevention strategies
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Increasing available training equipment and supplies in rural areas of Arizona
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Collection of
pre-hospital electronics data
Upcoming Events:
Related Publications:
Publications listed are
"PDF" files and require Acrobat Reader™
for viewing.
Fact Sheets:
Need more information?
Tomi St. Mars, RN, BSN, CEN,
Program Manager
150 N. 18th Ave., Suite 320
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
Phone: (602) 542-7340
Fax: (602) 364-7340
Email: stmarst@azdhs.gov
Additional Website Links:
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