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Florissant Valley Fire Protection District Honored by State
FVFPD officials from left, Sam Vance (Pediatric Subcommittee representative), RyanKostel (Shop Steward), Dan Lubiewski (Board Secretary), Chief Robert Corey, Diane Marischen (Board President), Bob Carmack (Board Treasurer), Mark Flauter (Chief Medical Officer), and Patty Loeschner (Office Manager).
(Special to the Independent News)
The Pediatric Subcommittee of the Missouri State Advisory Council on EMS has recognized the Florissant Valley Fire Protection District for compliance with the Emergency Medical Services for Children program.
Sam Vance, representing the Pediatric Subcommittee, presented the Board of Directors with a certificate of recognition and special decals for placement on the ambulances at their weekly meeting.
The Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMS-C) program is a national program started in 1985. Several nationally renowned organizations and groups helped develop and endorse this program.
The Committee on Trauma of the American College of Surgeons (ACS COT) published a list of standardized equipment on ambulances. In 1988, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) also published a list. Both organizations collaborated on a revised joint document published in 2000. The National Association of EMS Physicians participated with the other organizations in a 2005 revision.
This most current revision included updated pediatric recommendations developed by the federal EMS-C Stakeholder Group, and has been endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). The program has developed several performance measures for the Program’s State Partnership grantees, one of which evaluates the availability of essential pediatric equipment for Basic Life Support and Advanced Life Support ambulances.
The state of Missouri started their EMS-C program in 1991. The program started as collaboration between the three main children’s hospitals in Missouri: St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital, and Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. As of April 1, 2010, 71 departments of the 216 ambulance and fire based EMS departments in the state have participated in the program.
To participate in the program, departments must have all the equipment and supplies on a checklist published by the Pediatric Subcommittee.
For the purposes of this program, the following age breakdown is used. A neonate is 0-28 days old, and infant is 29 days to 1 year old, and a child is >1 year through 11 years old. The child is further divided into four categories. Toddlers are 1-3 years old, Preschoolers are 3-5 years old, Middle Childhood is 6-11 years old, and Adolescents are 12-18 years old. The two children’s hospitals in St. Louis will treat patients in all these age ranges.
