By Patricia A. Scheyer
NKyTribune reporter
Morgan Scaggs from the Kentucky EMS for Children came to the regular Florence city council meeting Tuesday night to present the EMS squad with a plaque, along with decals to put on their vehicles signifying their commitment to meet the standards put forth by the Kentucky EMS for Children board.
“It is my pleasure to be here to recognize the efforts of the Florence Fire and EMS department to improve pediatric emergency care,” Scaggs began as the loud beep of the EMS workers in the room suddenly went off indicating an emergency call out. “I work with the Kentucky board of emergency medical services, and as a board we are a regulatory body that ensures public protection by establishing minimal standards for licensing of both EMS agencies and Emergency medical personnel.”
She said that every person that calls 911 for emergency care has some sort of unique circumstances, but a lot of the care that is provided is somewhat standardized, because about 95 percent of the patients are adults.
When the patient is an infant, a child or an adolescent, it carries additional challenges.
Children don’t always have the same ability to communicate as adults. Also, their vital signs vary by age and weight for each child, and their medication dosage, while standardized for adults, vary by weight, and those determinations have to be made under stressful conditions in many cases.
“So quick, how many kilograms is 84 pounds?” she asked the audience. No one answered.
She said calculating things quickly adds to the stress of caring for the patient as a child. As a parent herself, she knows that parents want the EMS technicians to be on their ‘A game’ when responding to their child.
Her program, she explained, established some criteria that go above and beyond the minimum standards. The agency makes the commitment that they are going to do more pediatric emergency medical training and education for their providers. They pledge that they will evaluate skill competency on a regular basis. They will name someone as a pediatric emergency care coordinator that will be the point person to evaluate pediatric issues for their service. They will do community education and outreach to ensure that members of the community have injury prevention, that could lead to less need for emergency care.
These are just some of the criteria needed to qualify EMS medical services for acceptance into the program. Florence EMS is now one of 35 agencies who made the commitment to have the best pediatric care for the children in their responding area.
Scaggs said they now have about 22 to 23 percent of the EMS services in the state of Kentucky in their group.
“This is an annual program,” she said. “Every year they will be reporting back to us and demonstrating that they’ve met our program criteria and they continue to be committed to providing the best care for the children of Florence.”