OUTREACH

Regionalized pediatric emergency care was a key recommendation of the Institute of Medicine’s 2006 report “Emergency Care for Children: Growing Pains”. This report called for organized, accountable systems of care to improve emergency care access for the nation’s children. 

In response, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh developed the Optimizing Utilization and Rural Emergency Access for Children (OUTREACH) program. OUTREACH seeks to improve the quality of pediatric emergency care in rural communities through a combination of education, protocolized care and emergency telemedicine.

OUTREACH is a partnership between Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare. Under the supervision of an Advisory Council made up of regional health care engagement groups, OUTREACH will build off existing ties between Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh and multiple rural health care providers to:

  • Engage key community members to identify the barriers to regionalized care and strategies to overcome those barriers;
  • Implement a tiered, regionalized pediatric emergency care model in direct partnership with the local communities using a combination of education and telemedicine;
  • Evaluate the impact of regionalized care on outcomes important to patients and their families.

OUTREACH is funded by the United States Health Services and Resources Administration (HRSA) and made possible by additional infrastructure investment by the UPMC Health Plan.

Additional Information

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For more information on OUTREACH, please contact our Project Manager.