A digest of EMSC Program News and Activities
Issue #52 | Aug. 26, 2020
By Nanfi N. LubogoYou cannot talk about health disparities and inequalities in healthcare without talking about and addressing racial and social injustice. The very inequalities that we know exist in healthcare today were rooted hundreds of years ago due …
Read MoreThe EMS for Children Innovation and Improvement Center is excited to announce an upcoming HRSA-EMSC sponsored Telehealth Quality Collaborative to launch in January 2021 and continue through June 30th, 2021. The goal of this collaborative is to:1) Evaluate the impact …
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With this new HRSA EMSC grant cycle which began July 1, 2020, a trio of pediatric emergency medicine physicians from 3 national centers (California, Texas, and Connecticut) join Kate Remick and Charles Macias to complete the Executive Core of the …
Read More..The mission of the Emergency Medical Service for Children, Innovation and Improvement Center (EIIC) is to reduce child and youth mortality and morbidity resulting from severe illness or injury in ALL children. We recognize that advocating for social justice, equity and equality is essential for improving quality and safety for all children .
Each month, we will devote a section of this newsletter to this topic that will highlight diverse voices from our stakeholders and include resources from our partners and collaborating national organizations.
Racial Health Disparities: How COVID-19 Magnified a Public Health Emergency – June 24, 2020 (15 min)
Helping Your Child Cope with Media Coverage of Community Racial Trauma: Tips for Parents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qtn2ZFx6ZM&feature=youtu.be
Talking to Young Children About Race and Racism
https://www.pbs.org/parents/talking-about-racism
AACAP Racism Resource Library Anti-racism resources for parents, patients, and clinicians.
https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Resource_Libraries/Racism_Resource_Library.aspx
AACAP Tips to Improve Care with LGBTQ Youth During the Pandemic and Beyond
AACAP Virtual Forum: Healthcare Disparities through the Lens of Diversity During the COVID-19 Pandemic
NEDARC sent a 2020 National Report to EMS agencies across the county regarding the results of pediatric emergency care coordination and skill checking on pediatric equipment. This report is available on the NEDARC website at https://nedarc.org/performanceMeasures/2020Results.html#Top
HRSA awarded over $101 million to combat substance use disorders (SUD) and opioid use disorders (OUD). The awards support 116 organizations in 42 states and the District of Columbia, some targeting high-risk rural communities.
HRSA awarded more than $21 million to support health centers' COVID-19 response efforts. The majority of this investment—$17 million—supports 78 Health Center Program look-alikes with funding to expand capacity for COVID-19 testing. The remaining $4.5 million was award to Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs). HCCNs support health centers to improve quality of care and patient safety by using health information technology to reduce costs and improve care coordination during COVID-19.
The EIIC is offering a limited number of free seats on a first come, first serve basis for the IHI Open School Online Courses. All courses must be completed by Sept 1st. Email Cassidy Penn (Cassidy.penn@texaschildrens.org) for more details.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) aims for equitable disaster planning and management for infants, children, adolescents, and young adults during the course of all disaster phases, such as preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery through resources and training materials shared on its AAP Children and Disasters website and through activities of its Council on Children and Disasters (COCD).
As an Emergency Medical Services for Children state partnership grantee or stakeholder, you are eligible to join the AAP as an affiliate member of the council or COCD. See details on member benefits and why you should join. This page on membership criteria includes a link at the bottom where you can create an AAP login and start the membership process. If you have questions about membership in general e-mail: membership@aap.org.
Election Day 2020 is Tuesday, November 3. The American Academy of Pediatrics is leading a robust Get Out the Vote campaign focused on the connection between health equity and voting. This election, we encourage pediatricians and those who care about children to vote like children’s futures depend on it. Multiple resources that are available to educate yourself, patients, families, and others can be found here.
Health care providers have been faced with many challenges this year that have been physically and mentally demanding. Your well-being is important. Join your colleagues to seek support and connect with your peers through Nurses Together: Connecting Through Conversations. https://www.signupgenius.com/org/nursestogether#/
We are looking for early adopters to provide feedback that will guide the KM work to improve content and inform the development of additional content before a broader national launch of the content. By registering as a user on https://emscimprovement.center “early adopters” will opt-in to receive early access to the content developed by the KM domain for their group and are asked to provide feedback. To this end, we have developed a personalized registration and login experience to keep you better informed of when new content becomes available. By registering on our website, you will receive early access to materials that have been developed for feedback, before broader launch. [FP(1] This will make you one of our partners in content evaluation before it becomes available publicly.
To register, select “Sign Up” in the top right box on https://emscimprovement.center, select the option “I would like to receive early access materials from the EIIC.” The time commitment for this work is approximately one-hour per month. By providing feedback, YOU will be helping us continually improve our resources and ultimately impact outcomes for children in urgent and emergent settings! Please share this opportunity with colleagues who might be willing to participate.
Note: if you already have a log-in you can still opt-in and add this feature by selecting your profile and adjusting your settings after logging in. Please reach out to Corrie Chumpitazi cechumpi@texaschildrens.org, Mohsen Saidinejad moh@emedharbor.edu, and/or marc.auerbach@yale.edu with any questions or feedback on the KM domain!
In July, the AAP published interim clinical guidance on Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C). The recommendations offer pediatricians guidance on the signs, symptoms, diagnosis, and management of this rare but serious complication associated with COVID-19.
A related article for parents is available on HealthyChildren.org. Drs Ellie Hirshberg and Linda Siegel participated as SOCC representatives on the AAP work group that developed the guidance.
Visit the COVID-19 web page on AAP.org to find clinical guidance, practice management resources, including telehealth and coding, educational resources for clinicians and families, data reports, a discussion board, and details on AAP advocacy efforts. For questions or comments related to the pandemic, email COVID-19@aap.org.
Adversity and stress are unavoidable aspects of serving as EMS clinicians, thanks to the challenges of everyday EMS work and the added difficulties brought on by extraordinary events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. There are ways, though, to cultivate resilience, recognize and manage stress, and turn adversity into an opportunity for personal growth and becoming a better version of yourself.
Living Well and Leveraging Adversity and Stress Over the Long Haul: This special EMS Focus informative webinar addresses the challenges and stresses of EMS work and offers practical advice for cultivating resilience. Guest speakers include two EMS veterans, leaders and resilience experts that inform the audience about self-awareness, self-care, and specific actions, practices and wisdom for living well. The live webinar has been archived and is available at: https://www.ems.gov/ems-focus.html.
The Office of Minority Health (OMH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services administers grant programs to support projects that implement innovative models to improve minority health and reduce health disparities.
OMH has released the following funding opportunity announcement for which applications are now being accepted.
Announcement Number: MP-CPI-20-001
Opportunity Title: State/Tribal/Territorial Partnership Initiative to Document and Sustain Disparity-Reducing Interventions
Learn more about this FOA and how to apply
Announcement Number: MP-CPI-20-002
Opportunity Title: Demonstration to Increase Hydroxyurea Prescribing for Children
with Sickle Cell Disease Through Provider Incentives
EMS agencies nationwide still widely report that hospitals and other healthcare providers refuse to share patient information with them, citing Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) concerns. Misconceptions about HIPAA create artificial barriers to legitimate, approved bidirectional data exchange between EMS and other providers. As a result, many healthcare systems are missing a critical opportunity to improve patient outcomes and advance evidence-based practices in prehospital care.
To conclusively answer this question, the National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) Technical Assistance Center (TAC) collaborated with Page, Wolfberg & Wirth, LLC Law Firm to provide an expert legal opinion regarding the bidirectional sharing of patient information between Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and other healthcare providers.
Imaginary Barriers: How HIPAA Promotes Bidirectional Patient Data Exchange with Emergency Medical Services provides evidence, precedence, and legal opinion to help educate and encourage healthcare providers to appropriately share patient information with EMS. This paper addresses why HIPAA does not restrict, and how the law promotes, bidirectional sharing of patient information between hospitals and EMS agencies.
Click this link for the full text. For questions, please contact Dr. Clay Mann, clay.mann@utah.edu, NEMSIS TAC or
Eric Chaney, eric.chaney@dot.gov, NHTSA OEMS.
Pediatric Seizure Management Publications:
Multicenter Evaluation of Prehospital Seizure Management in Children
Pediatric Sepsis Publication:
Pediatric Outcomes After Regulatory Mandates for Sepsis Care
The University of Utah Health’s TeleBurn program is pioneering the evaluation and treatment of burn injuries in the Mountain West and beyond. Providers can reduce costs, expand specialty burn care access to patients, and produce better outcomes for burn and frostbite survivors using the U of U Health Burn CSC app. Plus, it's FREE!! Available in the Apple Store now: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/uofu-health-burn-csc/id1521337083
We know rural health care faces unique challenges in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. The Federal Healthcare Resilience Working Group (HRWG) has developed the Rural Health Surge Readiness web portal, a collection of essential rural health care resources, tools, and training that health care workers and organizations – including EMS and 911, inpatient & hospital care, ambulatory care, and long-term care can utilize to prepare for and respond to COVID-19. This one-stop shop for rural health care lets users quickly find the information they need to prepare for or respond to surge events, navigate financial challenges related to the pandemic, and can enhance their capacity and capability to provide lifesaving care to Americans who live in rural areas across the country. Check out the portal. For more information, contact the Federal Healthcare Resilience Working Group.
What is FAN Mail? In each issue of the EMSC Pulse, you will find a “FAN Mail” section with information specific to our Family Advisory Network (FAN) members. Each issue will contain announcements, links to resources and highlights of the work being accomplished by the FAN members across the county.
On August 19th, the EMSC FAN webinar, Impacts of COVID-19 and Social & Health Disparities on the Delivery of Pediatric Emergency and Mental Health Care, brought together three experts from emergency psychiatry who addressed the following topics. The webinar was recorded and will be posted to the EIIC website’s webinar page here: https://emscimprovement.center/education-and-resources/webinars/
We are pleased to welcome Sarah Ronis, MD, MPH as the new EIIC lead for the Family Advisory Network. Dr. Ronis is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine and Director of the Center for Child Health Policy and Research at University Hospital Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio. In addition to providing clinical care, Dr. Ronis focuses on care coordination for children with special health care needs including optimizing the use of technologies to improve communication among caregivers and healthcare providers in community settings.
UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals is hosting a series of conversations on the re-opening of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic.
At the link below you will find recording from the past two sessions as well as a link to register for the third, titled "Supporting Children During Remote Learning with an Emphasis on Equity and Mental Health”
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