MCHB Conference Webcasts
2005 EMSC Annual Grantee Meeting
April 12-13, 2005
SHARON MACE: Good afternoon. Am I the last person? I always get the last person of the day, and they usually kick me: We're over time, you have two minutes to do your ten minute speech. So Marianne, I get a little bit more time today. But don't worry. I'm not going to keep you long.
I'm going to give you an update about the American College of Emergency Physicians and our Pediatric Emergency Medicine Committee.
So if you want to stand up and stretch for a second, I'll let you. But what I want to tell you is that the American College of Emergency Physicians has over 21,000 members. We have multiple committees, and the pediatric committee, as with all the committee members, including the chair of the committee, is appointed by the president of ACEP. And the president and the board give us specific objectives to work on each year.
And I thought what I'd do is tell you what some of our objectives are for this year. And, first of all, one of the things we've been working on is the IOM Report. And I'm pleased to mention that one of our representatives, Dr. Marianne Gausche Hill, who preceded me as committee chair of pediatric committee for ACEP is a member of that committee. One of the objectives for this year, which we've already completed, is to put together a packet of information and review some of the evidence‑based literature about pediatric emergency medicine and some of the key issues and some of the topics involved in that.
And we have a CD‑ROM on that, and we also have a bibliography. And if anybody is interested, you can call our office in Dallas or contact me and I'd be happy to share that with you.
One of the other objectives we've had is we're working on overcrowding and the ambulance diversion problem. And we're working on a informational paper to deal with that issue, some of the causes, the reasons, some possible solutions. One of the other things, and I like to acknowledge, is Dr. Baretta here, she's our ACEP representative. Dr. Baretta, could you stand up for us.
(Applause).
Dr. Baretta is a member of our committee, and she is co‑chairing with Dr. Lee Benjamin our project on patient safety and quality dealing with pediatric issues. And our goal is to put together an informational paper dealing with patient safety and quality.
One of our other members, Kathleen Brown, who was also on our committee, has done a wonderful job of putting together a family‑centered care paper which we submitted to Annals of Emergency Medicine. And we're also working on a position statement about family‑centered care. This is one of the things I want to talk about which may be a joint policy statement with the American Academy of Pediatrics. I'm also going to talk about some other liaisons.
One of our other objectives is dealing with mental health issues. And we completed recently a three‑part paper on mental health issues, the crisis really for pediatric patients in the United States on mental health, and again this has been submitted to our Journal Annals of Emergency Medicine; and Jill Barren has done a great job working on that. With that, we're also working on currently a policy statement about the need for mental health services for children and why it's important, what we need to do about it. And hopefully some solutions to that crisis in mental health care for children.
I want to say that I think ACEP is very friendly toward EMSC and toward children. And we certainly are strongly represented by pediatric people. In fact, three of our board members of the ACEP board are pediatric emergency physicians. And Rick Blum, who is going to be our next president of ACEP, is a pediatric emergency physician. Our board liaison, Ray Johnson, and John Brennan are all pediatric emergency physicians. So some people think we're stacking the board. And I like that idea.
One of the other things I like to mention is we do education. And I'd like to congratulate Marianne for putting together the first Annual Pediatric Emergency Medicine Assembly here the past three days in Washington D.C. Really the cutting edge of what's going on in pediatric emergency medicine. And some of the real leaders and researchers and educators in pediatrics. Many names and many people who are here, like Nate Cupperman and so on, were there speaking and talking about research PCARN, EMSC and so on. This marvelous conference had 372 attendees for the very first conference. And so that was very well done. And we're hoping there will be a second year. And this is the first of many, and we're hoping next year in April in Chicago , I think. So just let you know what's upcoming.
A few other things. I mentioned that one other thing we do is political advocacy. And I want to say that I just came from the Hill and met in the hall our Senator Dewyne and some of the staffers. I'd like to acknowledge Bill Cotton from AAP also from Ohio and state EMS director, where are you sitting? Great. Back there. The three of us had a chance to sit down and meet today, so that's why we're late, with our senator and senator's office and talk about EMSC. And we're kind of proud, from Ohio , that he was one of the sponsors of the bill, and a very strong supporter.
So political advocacy is definitely one of the things we're doing. In fact, at our fall meeting in September will be here in Washington , and we're planning on having a white coat rally on the Capitol steps. So all our doctors are going to come with their white coats and talk about EMSC and all the other key issues that face us in healthcare.
I would like to say that our committee, which is about 15 people, also has an international bent. And we have several people from Canada . We have Rand Goldman from Toronto Children's and Joe Finkle from Vancouver , British Columbia . So we're trying to cover all of North America , if we can.
Other issues: Let me mention that I have to give credit to Elaine Jastron, our ACEP staff member in Dallas . Really a wonderful person and a great deal of information and knowledgeable. And that if you have any questions or issues, I'm going to give you ACEP's 1‑800 toll free number and their website so that you can call and get information. I would say that recently we had a conference call about EMSC which was very productive. They had our ACEP president‑elect and Marianne, myself, a chair of our section of pediatric medicine, put together a fact sheet on EMSC. And we'd be happy to share that with anybody.
We also have our website, www.acep.org, where we have all of our policy statements and informational papers and other things that might be of interest to people. So I mentioned our politics. I mentioned our education. And I like to say we've done things ‑‑ we're very happy to have multiple liaisons and teamwork and working with other organizations. I'm sure I can't mention everything, but I'd like to mention our working with AAP, whom we're hoping to work on a family‑centered care policy for the emergency department, for the entire emergency department, all ages, but we want to work on a section with AAP dealing just with children.
We also would like to work with them on our mental health issue and a position statement, as well as something with patient safety and quality, and Karen Trish is working with us on that. And Steve Kruege is working with us on our overcrowding issues. So we want to thank them.
One of the things that we have already finished, I mentioned our IOM information background that we developed in a CD‑ROM. And quite an excellent bibliography. One of the other things that I have to thank EMSC for, who really funded our grant, was the targeted grant on pediatric analgesia and sedation. And this was a collaborative effort with the American Academy of Pediatrics, ACEP, the surgeons, the anesthesiologists, the Emergency Nurses Association.
We met together and had a few face‑to‑face encounters, some conference calls, put together a very nice document where we looked and resourced the various commonly used sedatives for pediatric patients in the emergency department, such things as Atomadade, Porphyphol, Ketamine, Methahexadol, Penobarbital; combinations like Phentanol, Menalozame, Kenamine Medazolame, looked at purely are they safe and are they effective in the emergency department, just for pediatric patients.
And after looking at the evidence‑based research, we came up with the answer is yes, they are safe and effective in the ED for use. And we're happy to report that this was published in our October Anals of Emergency Medicine. And you can also access that on line or in the 2004 Anals of Emergency Medicine.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some things. I will mention also our section of Pediatric Emergency Medicine. As I mentioned, the committee is appointed by ACEP's president, but we have a section that's opened to all of our members. ACEP has something like 21 sections, everything from EMS to infomatics to pediatrics, to geriatrics.
And I'm happy to say that for many years the pediatric section is either one or two in the number of section members. So it's one of the largest sections in ACEP. And their focus also is on education. They have a program at our Annual Scientific Assembly every year. And they put out a very good informational newsletter. So we're very proud of them as well.
So I'm sure I'm forgetting somebody. But I'll be here and I'd be happy to answer any questions and thank you for your time.
(Applause)