Making Wisconsin’s emergency departments more prepared for kids

Wisconsin Emergency Medical Services for Children (WI EMSC) understands that children have unique medical needs. That’s why, with funding from the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment, they’ve created the Wisconsin Pediatric Readiness Program for Community Emergency Departments (Pediatric Readiness Program). This program aims to ensure Wisconsin’s community emergency departments (EDs) are well-equipped to handle pediatric patients.

Throughout the Pediatric Readiness Program, WI EMSC has developed and tested a toolkit to help EDs improve pediatric readiness, the Pediatric Readiness Implementation Guide, which is now available for your ED to download! While using the Implementation Guide, our Pediatric Readiness Program Cohort EDs saw an average change of more than 20 points in their National Pediatric Readiness Project (NPRP) scores!

How to use the Implementation Guide
The Implementation Guide is intended for ED staff to utilize to improve their pediatric readiness, and meet the NPRP criteria. The Implementation Guide is intended to be a question-by-question reference, organized in the same manner as the Pediatric Readiness assessment. It is not meant to be read from beginning to end. Instead, it is organized so that you may review the sections and questions that are most important for you and your department – helping you to address and maximize your NPRP score and pediatric preparedness.

For each NPRP question, there is a corresponding one- or two-page description in the Toolkit. Each page restates the NPRP question, provides the rationale behind the question and indicates essential and supplemental activities that will satisfy the question’s requirements. Additional resources such as policy statements, sample policies and procedure descriptions, along with evidence-based research, are included at the conclusion of each section.

Take Action: Download the Pediatric Readiness Implementation Guide today!

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Please reach out to Carissa Brunner, program leader, with any questions.

Development of this document was funded wholly by the Advancing a Healthier Wisconsin Endowment (AHW). AHW is a statewide health improvement philanthropy propelling promising work and ideas in health research, health care education, and community health initiatives to improve health and advance health equity in Wisconsin today, and for generations to come. Established by the Medical College of Wisconsin to steward a generous gift from Blue Cross & Blue Shield United of Wisconsin, AHW has invested more than $360 million in nearly 760 projects since 2004.