Nurse Pediatric Competency, Certification, and Continuing Education: Impact on EDs' Pediatric Readiness

Children present to emergency departments regardless of their readiness to care for pediatric patients. The National Pediatric Readiness Project is an initiative to improve pediatric emergency care. Increased National Pediatric Readiness Project scores have been associated with decreased mortality. The purpose of this study is to examine the association between nurse pediatric competency, certification, and/or continuing education and weighted pediatric readiness scores.

A sub-analysis of the 2021 National Pediatric Readiness Project Assessment examining nurse pediatric competencies and overall pediatric readiness scores of emergency department of United States includes descriptive statistics, testing for the association between hospital characteristics and pediatric patient volume using Fisher's tests and Kruskal-Wallis tests, and Wilcoxon rank-sum tests of score and nurse pediatric competencies.

The majority (89%) of emergency departments require some nurse competency evaluations. Only 20.1% of emergency departments require nurse specialty certification. Most emergency departments have a hospital-specific nurse competency evaluation policy (91.7%) and nurse continuing education policies (98.3%). Having policies for competencies is significantly associated with increased median weighted pediatric readiness scores above the national median: nursing continuing education policy weighted pediatric readiness scores 71.3 (P = .030), nurse specialty certification policy weighted pediatric readiness scores 83.5 (P<.001), and nurse hospital-specific competency evaluation policy weighted pediatric readiness scores 72.3 (P<.001).

Most emergency departments have a requirement for nurse pediatric-specific competency evaluations, and having nursing competency requirements is associated with higher weighted pediatric readiness scores. This highlights the importance of emergency nurse pediatric competency, certification, and continuing education on pediatric readiness scores, and therefore, the potential reduction in pediatric mortality.