Emergency medical service systems try to bring essential prehospital medical treatment to patients as quickly as possible. Emergency care of children presents a particular challenge since prehospital providers often treat fewer children and have limited pediatric experience and assessment skills. It can be more difficult to assess the severity of illness or injury since characteristic changes in vital signs that signal deterioration in adults may not occur in children. Important anatomic, physiologic, and developmental differences exist between children and adults that affect their responses to medical care and their risk of injury and illness. Most EMS systems operate independently of hospitals or other facilities and typically have few physicians to ensure appropriateness of care.
Experienced providers can offer medical direction in two ways, either online or offline.
Offline medical direction includes the development of guidelines, protocols, procedures, and policies, as well as planning for, training in, and evaluation of their use. Increase the number of States and the District of Columbia that have adopted and disseminated pediatric guidelines that categorize acute care facilities with the equipment, drugs, trained personnel, and other resources necessary to provide varying levels of pediatric emergency and critical care. All States and the District of Columbia. 11 States had adopted and disseminated pediatric guidelines that categorize acute care facilities with the equipment, drugs, trained personnel, and other resources necessary to provide varying levels of pediatric emergency and critical care in 1997. Emergency care for life-threatening pediatric illness and injury requires specialized resources, medical direction, equipment, drugs, trained personnel, and properly staffed and equipped hospitals.