The mission of the Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) is to reduce child and youth mortality and morbidity sustained due to severe illness or trauma. It aims to ensure state of the art emergency medical care for the ill and injured child or adolescent; to ensure that pediatric service is well integrated into an emergency medical service system backed by optimal resources; and to ensure that entire spectrum of emergency services, including primary prevention of illness and injury, acute care, and rehabilitation, is provided to children and adolescents as well as adults.

Georgia's EMSC program is supported by the federal EMSC program and works in collaboration with the Office of EMS/Trauma, Bioterrorism, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB), National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and other state and federal programs to increase the resources available.

EMSC has been federally funded in Georgia since 1994 and has developed many programs, distributed equipment and disseminated pediatric education in the state quite successfully. Tracie Al’Belar is the Project Coordinator for the program. She can be reached at 404-679-0535.

In the 2009-2011 grant cycle, the project will focus on:

• Increasing the percentage of agencies that have on-line/off-line pediatric medical direction available from dispatch through patient transport to a definitive care facility.
• Increasing Georgia’s essential pediatric equipment & supplies as outlined in National Standards.
• Creating a pediatric hospital designation system for hospitals that are able to stabilize pediatric traumatic and medical emergencies.
• Increasing the number of hospitals that have written inter-facility transfer guidelines and agreements that cover pediatric patients.
• And adopting pediatric requirements for license renewal of providers.