Latest news
National Assessment of Pediatric Readiness of US Emergency Departments During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This new summary assessment in JAMA Network Open gauges "pediatric readiness" in more than 3,600 hospitals based on an emergency department's adherence to the latest national guidelines. Access the article to find the median score and learn about the critical factors influencing readiness.
Treating infants, children, and teens seeking emergency medical care requires specialized pediatric skills, training, and equipment. EMSC expands and improves emergency care for children through research, partnership, and practice.
A recent study involving nearly 1000 emergency departments reported that when an emergency department was well-prepared to care for their pediatric patients, they experienced 60-76% lower short-term mortality and 41-66% lower long-term mortality among children. Had all emergency departments been well-prepared—what the study terms having "high-readiness"—more than 1400 pediatric deaths may have been prevented during the study years.
Our EMSC work aims to prevent deaths and make sure that children live their healthiest lives.
The Child and Adolescent Health Emergency Planning Toolkit
One in four families in the United States has at least one child with a special health care need. Health care, public health, and social services providers may find it harder to meet these needs during emergencies. This new toolkit can help. Health care, public health, and social services providers can use this toolkit to help ensure that children with special health care needs and their families and caregivers receive timely and accurate information about hazards and safety before, during, and after an emergency.
This toolkit was supported by MCHB's Divisions of Services for Children with Special Health Needs and of Child, Adolescent, and Family Health in partnership with the HHS Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
We fund various EMSC projects, awarding 71 grants and cooperative agreements to state governments and schools of medicine.
Access our awardee's work that builds the systems of services for children through:
For information about the following Notices of Funding Opportunities (NOFOs) and their funding cycles, please reach out to Theresa Morrison-Quinata, EMSC Branch Chief
Since 1985, our EMSC work has helped seriously ill and injured children. We make sure that—no matter where a child lives—the health systems in their area provide quality emergency care services.
The goals are to improve access and quality of emergency care for children and reduce serious injury or death.
The program also provides leadership in improving emergency services for children and teens both before they get to the hospital and after they arrive at the emergency department.
We do this through funding, partnership, and practice:
Need more information, or have a specific question? Email MCHBinfo@hrsa.gov.