Use of Equity Report Cards to Mitigate Disparities in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Care for Injured Children

Pain, Acute

Racial Groups

This trial will assess whether development and sharing of 'Equity Report Cards' focussed on the recognition and treatment of pain for injured children by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) can help decrease disparities by race and ethnicity.

This is a pragmatic trial using an interrupted time-series design. The investigators will collect two years of retrospective data to establish a baseline. At month 2 the investigators will distribute EMS Agency-level 'Equity Report Cards' to both agency leadership and all frontline EMS providers. This 'Equity Report Card' will contain monthly pooled, agency-level information summarizing clinical data for injured children stratified by race/ethnicity. At month 7 the investigators will also distribute Battalion-level 'Equity Report Cards' to agency leadership and all frontline EMS providers. The 'Equity Report Card' will include baseline historical data and a 3-month rolling average for each of the study outcomes. The 'Equity Report Card' will also include an action plan with evidenced based recommendations specifically targeted to improve care. The outcomes for this study include both process measures (including documentation of pain scores, administration of any analgesia and administration of opiate analgesia) and also patient-centered clinical outcomes (reduction of pain as reported by the patient). These key study outcomes align with performance measures developed by the National EMS Quality Alliance (NEMSQA). Patient race and ethnicity will be abstracted from the EMS medical record. The investigators will also collect data regarding potential confounding variables including patient age, sex, geographic location of encounter and other dispatch details. The investigators will conduct an interrupted time series analysis (ITSA) to evaluate the magnitude and statistical significance of the average difference (intercept) and difference between trajectories (slopes) for our 24 month control (T0) and each of the two intervention 5 month time periods (T1 and T2). This will allow the investigators to measure the impact of each additional intervention (EMS agency-level followed by the addition of Battalion-level 'Equity Report Cards').

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United States