Emergency Medical Services for Children Evaluation of Readiness and Outcomes

Our overall goal is to improve the delivery of safe and high-quality prehospital care for children with critical emergencies and improve their outcomes. This study will expand on the National Pediatric Readiness Project (NPRP) methods to rigorously evaluate factors that improve pediatric readiness for EMS agencies and health outcomes for children. In the process, we will provide vital scientific evidence to concurrent efforts by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)-funded EMS for Children Innovation and Improvement Center (EIIC) to develop policies and procedures. Our primary research question is: when EMS agencies have increased readiness for critical pediatric emergencies, evidenced by a higher readiness score, do the children they care for have better outcomes? The specific health outcomes we will evaluate include the occurrence of adverse safety events during EMS care and hospital outcomes specific to the diseases we will evaluate. We are focused on specific conditions where EMS may be more likely to have an impact on care. The EMS system is positioned to improve outcomes for medical conditions that require immediate stabilization, such as seizures, trauma, cardiac arrest, and respiratory failure, which are the areas of focus for this study. The most common age group for cardiac arrests is infants less than 1 year of age. Infants are also at greater risk of respiratory failure from illnesses such as bronchiolitis and pneumonia. A significant focus of this study is on improving infant health outcomes.