About Us
Improving Pediatric Acute Care Through Simulation (ImPACTS) brings together individuals working to improve pediatric emergency care in a community of practice. In the US, 90% of the 31 million children requiring emergency care present to EDs where the majority of the patients are adults. These EDs may not be optimized to care for the sickest pediatric patients and/or have access to pediatric subspecialists. ImPACTS involves academic medical centers collaborating community hospitals and other academic medical centers in a community of practice with a shared vision.
The Vision
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To ensure that every ill and injured child receives timely, safe and effective emergency care whenever and wherever it is needed (no matter where they live, attend school or travel).
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To ensure that emergency health care providers across the continuum are prepared to provide timely, safe and effective emergency care to children.
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To ensure that every ED has the equipment and resources to provide timely, safe and effective emergency care to children.
Structure
Collaboration between many the top US Children’s Hospitals/Academic Medical Centers (Regional Centers or hubs) allows for open sharing of knowledge, experiences and resources in their collaborative work with community hospitals (spokes). To participate, Regional Centers are required to engage at least two community hospitals in the program each year and to contribute to the efforts to achieve the vision above. These centers are supported by a steering committee, core and advisory board. ImPACTS has applied the hub and spoke model to community Emergency Departments, and outpatient offices. Current work to develop hub and spoke models for inpatient pediatrics, pediatric transport teams, and neonatal units is now underway.
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Hospitals that care for a large volume of children are eligible to serve as regional centers (children’s hospitals, academic medical centers and/or general hospitals). Centers complete a train-the-trainer with the core to ensure the effective implementation of ImPACTS. This involves the core team traveling to the Regional Center to support them in conducting a pilot session in their own ED, followed by the enrollment of a community site. After completing training regional centers are considered ImPACTS sites and can begin to implement the program at other hospitals. Regional centers are expected to participate in quarterly meetings. After a center is involved for over 1 year they can elect to participate on the steering committee. ImPACTS has trained 36 regional centers to date.
