Emergency Medical Services for Children Advisory Committee
The Emergency Medical Services for Children Advisory Committee is vital to the success of the EMSC State Partnership. The role of the advisory committee is to provide guidance to the State Partnership through vigilant exploration of the state of pediatric emergency medical care in Texas, identification of EMSC priorities, development of a strategic plan, and implementation and evaluation of EMSC strategy. Committee members, through their various backgrounds and disciplines, bring together a rich assortment of experiences and perspectives to achieve common goals. Moreover, as leaders in the community and in their respective professions and occupations, EMSC Advisory Committee members are instrumental in the promotion and promulgation of EMSC priorities.
In 2008, the Emergency Medicine Committee of the Texas Pediatrics Society agreed to establish an EMSC Advisory Committee for the state. Although an active pediatric subcommittee on the Governor's EMS/Trauma Advisory Council already provides input to the state government on the emergency care needs of children, this subcommittee does not have the authority to lobby. TPS is the official Texas chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, and it has a long standing history of advocating for the health care needs of children in Texas. Therefore, housing the EMSC Advisory Committee in TPS allows it to better influence legislation and affect health care through direct interaction with pediatric leaders in Texas.
Committee Members
Required
The Emergency Medical Services for Children Advisory Committee is composed of the following eight core (required) members plus one added position:
| Position/Experience | Member |
| Nurse with pediatric emergency experience | Sally Snow, RN, trauma program director--Cook Children's Medical Center |
| Physician with pediatric training | Sujit Iyer, M.D. |
| Emergency physician | Philip Ewing, M.D., Pediatric Emergency Medicine--Children's Medical Center in Dallas |
| Emergency medical technician/ paramedic | Liz Yankiver, EMT-Paramedic--Austin-Travis County EMS |
| EMS State agency representative | Jane Guerrero, RN, director--Office of EMS/trauma systems coordination--Texas Department of State Health Services |
| EMSC principle investigator | Manish Shah, M.D. |
| EMSC grant manager | Sam Vance, B.A., NREMT-P, program manager EMSC Texas State Partnership |
| Family representative | Debbie Wiederhold--Texas Parent to Parent |
| Quality Position | Charles Macias, M.D., M.P.H. |
Recommended
The EMSC Program also has identified a list of recommended committee members that should be selected based on the unique needs of each individual State/Territory. The following 16 members are strongly encouraged (but not required) to play a role on the Advisory Committee:
- Hospital association representative
- State trauma manager
- EMS training manager
- Tribal EMS representative
- Data manager
- School nurse
- Ambulance association representative
- Child death review representative
- Fire-based EMS representative
- Police representative
- Bioterrorism representative
- Disaster preparedness representative
- Parent teacher association representative
- Recipient of MCH block grant for CSHCN
- Highway representative
- Legislator