Emergency Nurses Association Announces Recipient of 2019 Pediatric Readiness Improvement Award

This ENA award recognizes a member who has demonstrated outstanding efforts to improve readiness in caring for children in the emergency care setting was presented to Karen Kaskie, BSN, RN, CEN, CPEN, CFRN, of South Dakota. This is the second time this distinguished prize has been awarded.

Karen works full time as a RN Simulation Specialist at a large, regional health care system in South Dakota that has a number of critical access and rural locations. Karen provides neonatal, infant, and pediatric simulation scenarios to professionals ranging from providers, nurses, RTs, medics, EMTs, and first responders. She travels to remote areas to provide education and also reviews pediatric resources and provides recommendations to improve pediatric care. One of her favorite simulations is on emergent delivery and pediatric airway. She provides pediatric reference materials including vital sign and equipment size charts/posters and badge cards. Karen works closely with her EMSC manager to promote the pediatric readiness assessment and best practices for pediatric care throughout a variety of emergency environments ranging from first responder vehicles, critical access EDs, urban EDs, and flight teams. Karen is also involved in government affairs advocacy efforts of ENA where she participated in the action alert supporting pediatric readiness on airlines.

Through simulation and rural outreach, Karen is immersed directly into the environment of some of the most frontier and vulnerable settings in South Dakota that may lack pediatric resources. She empowers nursing staff to host open and candid conversations promoting organizational readiness and excellence in pediatric care, emphasizing the importance of safety in all aspects of pediatric care especially those that are high risk and low frequency