Leveraging EMS for Children State Partnerships to Improve Pediatric EMS Care

Abstract

Emergency Medical Service (EMS) responses for pediatric patients represent 13% of total EMS responses in the United States.¹ Despite that, the average experience of the typical prehospital provider in caring for pediatric patients is highly variable, with more than 39% of EMS services seeing fewer than 13 pediatric patients a year.² The requirements for initial EMS provider certification vary, from 4 to 9 hours for emergency medical technicians and 7 to 34 hours for paramedics, often combining pediatrics into a “special populations” domain which includes geriatrics, obstetrics, and other patient types.³ The lack of operational reinforcement of skills due to low pediatric volume, as well as limited educational opportunities for prehospital providers, results in a lack of comfort when EMS providers find themselves in a situation needing to provide care to an ill or injured child. It is this knowledge and experience gap that the EMS for Children program addresses through state partnership collaborations and regional partnerships.