North Carolina — Targeted Issue

Project Overview

The purpose of the proposed project is to implement an integrative system of personnel, resources, and online tools targeting individual EMS systems in order to improve prehospital care for pediatric patients. Numerous studies have demonstrated that innovations in medical care guidelines can take up to two decades to be put into practice in the field. This problem is amplified in fields with greater stress and personnel turnover, such as EMS. Additionally, EMS respond to substantially fewer pediatric calls compared to adult calls, leading to providers feeling less prepared, less knowledgeable, and less confident when caring for these patients. In order to address this gap in quality of care, the EMSC has proposed establishing PECCs as the local pediatric expert in EMS Systems. This project will implement a focused program of performance improvement feedback tools, educational and training resources, and a comprehensive online system that will support this new PECC role in ten low-resource, rural EMS Systems in North Carolina (NC). This project will expand on a program that currently provides NC EMS Systems with some data-driven, performance-based feedback tools, and educational courses. These PECCs will be supported by the existing and newly created tools and the role responsibilities and competencies will be continually evaluated and improved. Facilitators and barriers to role implementation will be evaluated via qualitative measures such as premortem and postmortem groups, and overall effectiveness of the PECC role will be evaluated via quantitative analysis of actual pediatric care in the field over the course of the project. The goal of this project is to implement the PECC role in a way that is both effective and sustainable by utilizing real-time data, continuous feedback and evaluation tools, cutting-edge technology, and training of current EMS staff to implement the PECC role.

Institution

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Main Contacts

• Jane Brice, MD, MPH
• Julianne Cyr, MPH, CPH

Award Amount

$1,394,742

Products

Disseminations