By Courtney Schmoll—
MUNCIE, Ind.—Across the country, almost 10 percent of all 911 calls involve children. But within each local emergency department or emergency medical services agency, that can amount to seeing just a handful of children a month—meeting providers are not always well-versed in the specialized care that ill and injured kids require.
A federally funded program, Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) Innovation and Improvement Center is working to change that through quality improvement methodology and a systems-level approach to improving care. As part of that effort, the center recently announced the EMSC Scholars Program and the appointment of six scholars, including Natasha Thompson, FNP-C, a family nurse practitioner currently working at the IU Health Ball Memorial Hospital Emergency Department in Muncie, Indiana.
The EMSC Scholars Program is designed to support early career clinicians and health systems professionals like Thompson in becoming leaders in the pediatric emergency space. During the one- to two-year program, scholars will work alongside experts in the field to develop and implement a project in an area of interest.
Thompson is currently working on a project focused on enablers and barriers to pediatric emergency care coordinators in Indiana Emergency Departments. She has spent more than ten years in emergency medicine beginning her career at Riley Hospital for Children as a nurse in a pediatric emergency department in Indianapolis. She has worked the last four years at IU Health Ball in the ER as a nurse practitioner with a passion for improving care for children within the community setting. She is currently a doctoral student at the Indiana University School of Nursing located in Indianapolis, IN.
To learn more about EMSC, visit https://emscimprovement.center/.