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Connecticut Emergency Medical Services for Children

Connecticut Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) aims to ensure that every ill and injured child, no matter where they live, attend school, or travel, receive appropriate emergency medical care. A federal grant program supports state and local action.

The United States Department of Health established EMSC in 1984 to reduce death and disability in children ages 0-18, due to severe illness or injury. Every U.S. state/territory has a partnership grant that funds the local program. Connecticut’s program started in 1984 and has accomplished great work up to date. In January of 2016, CT EMSC transitioned from the Department of Public Health to Yale New Haven Hospital. In July of 2016, the National EMSC moved to Houston from DC.

Who is EMSC?

EMSC is comprised of medical personnel, parents, volunteers, community groups, and national organizations. To get involved, please share your resources, ideas and educational opportunities, or join the Advisory Committee. Contact [email protected] or [email protected] for more information on the program.

Connecticut EMSC Co-Principle Investigators are:

  • Jason Malia, MHA, BSN, RN, Clinical Program Director, Emergency, Transport & Perioperative Services, Yale New Haven Children's Hospital
  • Mark X. Cicero MD, MD Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Emergency Medicine and Director of Pediatric Disaster Preparedness, Yale University School of Medicine
  • Michael Goldman, MD, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Section of Emergency Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine

Hospital-based Emergency Preparedness

CT Pediatric Disaster Coalition: (sponsored by AAP/CDC)
  • Researched, drafted, and approved checklist/guidelines for acute-care hospital related to pediatric disaster preparedness
  • Tabletop simulation exercises and checklist for preparedness conducted at YNHCH, CCMC, Charlotte Hungerford, Lawrence and Memorial, and Bridgeport Hospital
EMSC Facility Recognition Program: standardized system to recognize Emergency Departments that are ready to stabilize and/or manage children with medical emergencies. CT EMSC participates in a national recognition collaborative.

Improving Pediatric Acute Care through Simulation (ImPACTS): ImPACTS was created to help ensure that every ill and injured child in Connecticut, no matter where they live, attend school or travel, receive timely and appropriate emergency medical care. The ImPACTS team works with the partnering hospital’s ED and provides simulations to measure the quality of pediatric acute care in that hospital. The multidisciplinary team of pediatric emergency medicine trained physicians and nurses bring high-fidelity simulation equipment to the hospital in order to assess pediatric emergency performance in the workplace. After each simulation, the team provides real-time feedback to participants through debriefings. Approximately two weeks after this session we will provide explicit performance metrics in a report out that compares your hospital to other similar hospitals.  We will work with you to update pediatric policies, provide guidance on equipment, invite your providers to educational events and facilitate debriefings after difficult cases.

National Pediatric Readiness Project:  A collaboration with ACEP, ENA to assess and improve Emergency Department pediatric preparedness using a 100 point self-assessment. The survey was completed by all 36.The Connecticut mean was 70 (range of 42-100) and the national mean was 63. Mean for each of six domains in CT.

Pre-hospital Emergency Preparedness

Community Emergency Preparedness

Office-based Emergency Preparedness Program
The goal of the program is to evaluate and improve your office’s pediatric emergency preparedness. 

The office-based pediatric preparedness program will:
  • Assess your offices preparedness for pediatric office-based emergencies 
  • Teach staff (physicians, nurses, technicians and office staff) to recognize, locate and use the equipment in a pediatric office emergency kit and train them on the
  • “First Five Minutes” approach to office emergencies. 
  • Provide personal consultation on your office’s equipment, policies and procedures
  • Provide hands-on practice in treating pediatric office based emergencies 
    • Simulation-based case scenarios (customized to your office’s needs)
    • Skills stations (customized to your office’s needs)
  • Develop action plans with your leadership to improve emergency preparedness

An optional BLS/PALS certification component is available: completion of online content for PALS/BLS skills/cases is required for certification.

Disaster Education, Readiness, and Response

  • Consultation for hospital, EMS, and educational facility training exercises
  • Facilitation of EMS and hospital tabletop mass-casualty exercises
    • Customized exercises based on community resources
    • Interdisciplinary gap analysis and planning
    • Scalable response strategies from individual healthcare worker readiness and resilience to statewide integrated approaches
  • EMS/Hospital pediatric disaster readiness checklist
    • Training
    • Personnel
    • Equipment
    • Based on previous EMS Targeted Issues Grant findings
  • Family disaster preparedness and resiliency

Emergency Medical Services Training

  • EMS Region-Specific Training Programs
    • Pediatric medical emergencies
    • Pediatric trauma
    • Interfacility transport
    • Didactics, simulations, and workshops
    • Serious video game education
  • Provision of child-sized equipment
  • PediSTEPPS training course for paramedics and instructors (In conjunction with Baylor College of Medicine)
  • Representation on the Connecticut EMS Medical Advisory Committee.