Emergency departments pride themselves on being ready to treat any patient at any time—but how prepared is your emergency department to provide top-quality care for children of all ages? The National Pediatric Readiness Project (NPRP) aims to find out. The project measures how prepared U.S. emergency departments are to treat young patients and monitors for changes in preparedness scores over time.

The multiphase quality improvement initiative is supported by ACEP, the Emergency Nurses Association, the federal Emergency Medical Services for Children Program, and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

How It Works

Using a periodic questionnaire, NPRP assesses how prepared emergency departments are to provide high-quality care to children. The assessment will run May 1, 2021, through July 31, 2021, and will include emergency departments in the United States, including territories and freely associated states. ED nurse managers will receive mail and email notifications to complete the online assessment.

Each emergency department can only complete one assessment, so it’s important to engage with hospital leadership now so you can have input in your emergency department’s response.

How to Get Ready

• Visit www.PediatricReadiness.org to access a toolkit and checklist to help your emergency department prepare to deliver the highest-quality care to pediatric patients.
• Download and print the assessment form at www.PedsReady.org.
• Work with your ED leadership to gather the requested information so you’re ready to complete the online assessment when the invitation arrives.

Benefits

Each emergency department that participates in the NPRP Assessment will receive an ED Gap Report that includes:

• ED pediatric readiness score from 0–100
• Average scores of emergency departments of similar pediatric volume
• Average score of all participating emergency departments
• Analysis to target efforts for improvement in pediatric readiness

Emergency departments with higher pediatric readiness scores have a fourfold lower rate of mortality for children with critical illness compared to those with lower readiness scores.

Getting your emergency department ready for the NPRP Assessment can make a real difference for our littlest patients. Get started today!