The mission of the Mississippi Emergency Medical Services for Children Program is to prevent and reduce childhood, adolescent, and youth death and disability resulting from illness and injury. Also to provide continued pediatric education to prehospital and hospital professionals to ensure that each child, adolescent and youth injured in Mississippi received the best possible care.

Our children are our most precious resource, and as such need to be protected, educated and guided. Within the healthcare community, there are limited resources available to aid in the prevention of accidental injury, the most common cause of mortality and morbidity in the United States among our young.

The EMS-C program was designed by federal legislation in 1984 for this very reason as issues relating to children's emergency care required attention. Mississippi has been involved since 1997, one of few states to be active in this arena until recent years.

Project efforts have involved systems development, injury prevention, research and evaluation, improved training and education, and other aspects of EMS. The results have been EMS improvements benefiting not only Mississippi's children, but also its entire population.

Mississippi recorded approximately 83,347 separate injuries for patients between the ages of one year to 16 years. Of those, motor vehicle accidents constituted over 57% of all reported pediatric (ages 1-16) trauma calls in FY 2001. Other high volume calls for pediatrics throughout the state include falls, assaults, pedestrian incidents, gunshots, burns, and ATV accidents.

As healthcare providers, we know that the treatment and care for a pediatric varies greatly from that of an adult. Because of this fact, the EMS-C program will continue to work to ensure that pediatric issues are better integrated into the EMS system.