COMMITTEE ON PEDIATRIC EMERGENCY CARE (CoPEC)

CoPEC serves as an advisory board to the Board of Licensing Health Care Facilities and EMS Board of the Tennessee Department of Health to ensure the pediatric emergency care needs of Tennessee’s children are properly and fully addressed.

CoPEC and CECATN have focused on advancing children’s care to allow us to continue to be positioned at the forefront of pediatrics in our state and nationally.  The breadth of expertise and energy of CoPEC’s membership is a major component of its success.

For a copy of CoPEC's operating policy, click here. 

(Meeting minutes are hyperlinked with the meeting date.) 

November 10, 2022 - Williamson County EOC (304 Beasley Drive Franklin, TN)

February 9th, 2023 - Williamson County EOC (304 Beasley Drive Franklin, TN) 

April 12th, 2023 - Le Bonheur Children's Hospital (848 Adams Ave, Memphis, TN 38103)

August 10th, 2023 - Williamson County EOC (304 Beasley Drive Franklin, TN) 

November 9th, 2023 - Williamson County EOC (304 Beasley Drive Franklin, TN) 

Disaster Committee

The Disaster Committee focuses on disasters including training, education, equipment readiness, and triage/transfer guidelines into the statewide plan along with how to work with family members, educators and other care givers to ensure everyone across the state understands and is prepared how to prevent injuries and how to react during the event of a disaster.  Members of this committee may be asked to work with an upcoming healthcare coalitions collaboration.

Annual Goal: To create a Pediatric Disaster Plan template that can be distributed to healthcare coalitions to aid in meeting their planning deadlines.

Provider & EMS Education Committee

The Provider and EMS Education Committee focuses on education opportunities for emergency providers.  This could include preparing educational materials, finding research articles and other supporting resources to share with the EMS personnel, educators and caregivers across the state. Ideas for topics to focus on will be recognized through collaboration with the other committees. The members of this committee will provide these materials to the CRPC coordinators to utilize in their educational sessions, to the CECA office for distribution as well as any educational opportunities the committee decides to commit themselves to (i.e. coordinating EMS train-the-trainer classes for pediatric skills and equipment management, finding and sharing other educational opportunities across the state, etc.).

Annual Goal: Identify an existing CEU course or create an online CEU opportunity that provides sustainable educational resources for pre-hospital agencies to use for continuing education in addition to educating and using the PECCs once identified.

Clinical Issues Committee

The Clinical Issues Committee works to address current clinical issues identified throughout the state of Tennessee via viable data. The members of this committee will review clinical data, create pediatric policy and RN standardization templates (i.e. escalation of vital signs, weight in kilograms, pain assessment, Tylenol, Motrin, POCT testing, etc.), update resources (i.e. ED wall charts and school nursing handbooks), create pediatric best practice treatment guidelines (i.e. PECARN CT, bronchiolitis pathway, etc.) monitors these resources for updates and accuracy. Chairs or designated representative should be able to attend the TN Commissioner’s Clinical Issues Committee.

Annual Goal: Create or identify best practice guidelines to consolidate into an online database to be placed on the CECA website.

Membership Committee

The membership committee shall expand membership orientation, leadership capability, and member retention by addressing the history, mission, and values of CoPEC. In addition, the committee shall develop and revise the operating policy for the Committee on Pediatric Emergency Care (CoPEC).

Annual Goal: Maintain membership information, welcome new members and update orientation materials as needed.

Research & Data Committee

The goal of the Research committee is to identify target areas where additional research is needed and conduct the research. The members of this committee will help identify these target areas, create survey questions and target the audience to answer these questions. The CECA office can assist in administering the surveys as needed. The committee members will then analyze the data received through the survey results and present this data to the other committees. They will help the CECA office with the annual EMSC surveys and Performance Measures.

Annual Goal: Review Pediatric Readiness Benchmark Data and develop protocols as necessary.

Injury Prevention Committee

The Prevention Committee works closely with the Research Committee to identify gaps within the EMS system across the state and recognize ways and means to develop and integrate pediatric readiness into everyday lives of our communities (i.e. drowning prevention, pediatric disaster plan, RightDose project, incorporating educators and family/caregiver calls-to-action, regional community events).

Annual Goal: Consolidate injury prevention programs already available into one mechanism of distribution for ease of access for our communities throughout TN.

Standards Committee

This committee develops recommendations related to the continuum of emergency medical services for children system in Tennessee and incorporate the HRSA National EMSC Performance Measures. The recommendations may include proposed rule changes to the pediatric emergency care rules promulgated by the Board for Licensing Health Care Facilities or to the rules promulgated by the Emergency Medical Services Board. These recommendations shall be presented to the full Committee on Pediatric Emergency Care for approval.  The approved recommendations will be forwarded to the appropriate regulatory Boards for formal action. The committee shall present written/oral reports of its work at all CoPEC meetings.

Annual Goal: Once the hospital rules and regulations are approved, to update the interpretive guidelines to coincide with the updated rules and regulations.