The Pediatric Readiness Score (PRS) is a new(er) metric that is now required for all US trauma centers verified by the American College Surgeons. There is no specific threshold that must be met, but the value must be reported for review at the time of the site visit.
What is the PRS? It is a measure introduced by the National Pediatric Readiness Project. This is a quality initiative that was developed by the Emergency Medical Services for Children program (EMS-C), which partnered with the American College of Emergency Physicians, the Emergency Nurses Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The goal was to improve hospitals’ pediatric readiness through a self-administered survey. It was believed that by quantifying readiness, the hospitals would be better able to improve their scores via simple and, hopefully, inexpensive changes.
Each hospital completes a comprehensive assessment online (the paper version is 19 pages long). It solicits information on the following topics
- presence of a physician pediatric care coordinator
- presence of an ED nurse pediatric emergency care coordinator
- pediatric training and education of any health professionals taking care of children
- existence of an ED performance improvement plan for pediatric patients
- details of monitoring and care of children in the ED
- presence of social services and transfer guidelines for children
- existence of policies for family-centered care in the ED
- disaster planning polices including children
- presence of pediatric equipment, supplies, and resuscitation equipment in the ED
The scores provided by this assessment provide a standardized measure of pediatric readiness, ranging from 0 to 100. Scores can be improved relatively easily by ensuring that appropriate pediatric equipment is available in the ED, and ensuring that social services and transfer agreements include children and are up to date. Tasking a physician and nurse to oversee pediatric readiness is not necessarily as easy, but many are more than willing to step in to improve pediatric care at their hospital.
The biggest question I have when any major assessment / intervention is rolled out is, does it do what it is intended to do? In my next post, I’ll review a paper published last week that looks at the real-world implications of pediatric readiness vs. the lack thereof. This is of significance to both trauma and non-trauma hospitals.
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