Cdr. Emily R. Latimer, MS, BSN, AGCNS-BC, CEN, of North Carolina

Pediatric Readiness Improvement Award

The Pediatric Readiness Improvement Award recognizes an emergency nurse who has demonstrated outstanding efforts to improve readiness in caring for children in the emergency care setting as outlined in the evidence-based AAP/ACEP/ENA joint policy statement, Pediatric Readiness in the Emergency Department.

Emily Latimer, an emergency clinical nurse specialist at the Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune, coordinated a team to develop an evidence-based practice project to trial and implement new transfusion equipment to improve the safety of pediatric trauma resuscitations and pediatric massive transfusion at a Level III trauma center. She provided training to local EMS on pediatric blood administration equipment and safe transfusion practices. Latimer brought together an interdisciplinary team to align pediatric critical care drip orders and infusion pump libraries and developed a pediatric-specific medication audit to assess whether actual practice aligned with facility policy for high-alert and high-risk medications in the ED.

Currently, Latimer is leading an EBP project team to provide Community Resilience Model training to reduce the severity of secondary traumatic stress and burnout in healthcare providers at two military trauma centers. Latimer is a TNCC course faculty and was an item reviewer for the TNCC, 8th Edition, exam update.