EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES FOR CHILDREN INNOVATION AND IMPROVEMENT CENTER
The mission of the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) is to reduce child and youth mortality and morbidity resulting from severe illness or trauma.
To that end, EMSC funds and supports improvements in pediatric emergency care in every state and territory through competitive demonstration grants or cooperative agreements to state governments and accredited schools of medicine.
The four main programs in EMSC are:
- State Partnership (SP) grants that ensure that pediatric emergency care is integrated into the larger emergency medical services system.
- Targeted Issues (TI) grants that support innovative cross-cutting pediatric emergency care projects of national significance.
- State Partnership Regionalization of Care (SPROC) grants that develop systems of care models to improve pediatric emergency care capacity in rural and tribal communities.
- The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) which supports the infrastructure to conduct meaningful and rigorous multi-institutional studies in the management of acute illness and injury in children across the continuum of emergency medicine.
Announcement| CMMI releases Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) NOFO
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services Innovation Center (CMMI) was established as part of the Affordable Care Act to test models that “improve care, lower costs, and better align payment systems to support patient-centered practices.” The CMMI Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) model is CMMI’s first completely child-focused model developed to advance health payment and delivery system reform to improve health quality, population health, and achieve health cost savings. The detailed federal application announcement (the Notice of Funding Opportunity/NOFO) was released February 8th, and completed applications are due by June 10, 2019. The NOFO is here.
The Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) Model will test whether combining a local service delivery model coordinating integrated child health services and a state-specific alternative payment model (APM) to support coordination of those integrated services reduces health care expenditures and improves the quality of care for pediatric Medicaid and CHIP beneficiaries
Additional information is available here.
Announcement| EMSC releases Targeted Issues Grant Notice of Funding Opportunity
The Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) program has released the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the Targeted Issues grant program (Targeted Issues NOFO). This program will provide funding for investigator-initiated research projects to demonstrate the link between system readiness improvements within hospital and prehospital emergency medical systems and improved clinical care and better health outcomes among pediatric patients. There will be 4 grants awarded at $325,000 a year for 4 years. There are two categories of awards:
- Readiness of Emergency Departments (EDs) to Care
for Children. These projects will focus on how adoption of these AAP-ACEP- ENA ED
guidelines is associated with changes in the quality of pediatric clinical care
and improved health outcomes.
- System Readiness Improvements in EMSC Performance Measures. The projects will demonstrate the impact on delivery of optimal clinical care and improved pediatric health outcomes specific to two EMSC Performance Measures:
o Pediatric Emergency Care Coordination in Pre-Hospital Settings (EMSC Performance Measure 02): The presence of a designated individual or combination of individuals responsible for key coordination roles focused on improving pediatric care within a local EMS agency.
o Hospital Recognition for Pediatric Medical Emergencies (EMSC Performance Measure 04): Hospitals with an ED that are recognized through a statewide, territorial, or regional standardized program as able to stabilize and/or manage pediatric medical emergencies.
The NOFO is available to download from: https://mchb.hrsa.gov/fundingopportunities/?id=31632f4a-4257-4e53-b706-8a2b29f4c2e2
Applications will be due: April 11, 2019
There will be a Technical assistance Call for interested potential applicants on: January 31, 2019 at 2 PM EST and information on accessing this is available in the NOFO.
Announcement| EMS Agenda 2050: A People Centered Vision for the Future of Emergency Medical Services
After more than two years of stakeholder and public input, the Office of EMS at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and its federal partners have released “EMS Agenda 2050: A People-Centered Vision for the Future of Emergency Medical Services.” The document describes a vision for evidence-based, data-driven EMS that is integrated with the rest of the nation’s healthcare system.
Released in January 2019, EMS Agenda 2050 is the culmination of a two-year collaborative effort. It describes six guiding principles to help individuals, EMS leaders and communities in creating a more people-centered EMS system.
Announcement| PEDIATRICIANS, EMERGENCY PHYSICIANS AND NURSES CREATE JOINT RECOMMENDATIONS TO ENSURE INJURED AND CRITICALLY ILL CHILDREN RECEIVE THE BEST EMERGENCY CARE
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) and the Emergency Nurses Association (ENA) will publish the updated joint guidelines, “Pediatric Readiness in the Emergency Department,” that recommend ways health care providers can make sure every injured or critically ill child receives the best care possible.
The joint policy statement, to be published in the November 2018 issue of Pediatrics, represents a revision of the 2009 policy statement and highlights recent advances in pediatric emergency care that may be incorporated into all emergency departments that care for children. The statement (available here) emphasizes the importance of evidence-based guidelines and includes additional recommendations for quality improvement plans focusing on children and disaster preparedness.