Children represent a special challenge for emergency care providers, because they have unique medical needs in comparison to adults. For decades, policy makers and providers have recognized the special needs of children, but the system has been slow to develop an adequate response to their needs. This is in part due to inadequacies within the broader emergency care system. Emergency Care for Children examines the challenges associated with the provision of emergency services to children and families and evaluates progress since the publication of the Institute of Medicine report Emergency Medical Services for Children (1993), the first comprehensive look at pediatric emergency care in the United States. This new book offers an analysis of: • The role of pediatric emergency services as an integrated component of the overall health system. • System-wide pediatric emergency care planning, preparedness, coordination, and funding. • Pediatric training in professional education. • Research in pediatric emergency care. Emergency Care for Children is one of three books in the Future of Emergency Care series. This book will be of particular interest to emergency health care providers, professional organizations, and policy makers looking to address the pediatric deficiencies within their emergency care systems.

124994, 124995

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Committee on Improving the Disability Decision Process has been working since it first met in January 2005 to develop recommendations to the Social Security Administration (SSA) on how to improve the medical aspects of its disability determination process. By law, Social Security can only pay benefits to those unable to engage in substantial gainful activity because of a "medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in death or which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than 12 months (emphasis added)." Medical and psychological expertise is critical both in developing the criteria for measuring the severity and functional impact of an impairment or impairments on an applicant's ability to work and in applying the criteria to individual cases where the medical evidence does not clearly meet the criteria in the eyes of a nonmedical disability examiner.