The Pediatric Education for Prehospital Professionals (PEPP) Course has a rich history. It is the product of fifteen years of collaboration, brainstorming, review, revision, and re-revision by many dedicated physicians, nurses, paramedics, EMTs, and EMS educators interested in improving the quality of prehospital care for children.

The PEPP Course is the culmination of the best and most recent educational efforts in prehospital pediatrics, including the pediatric components of the National Standard Curricula for EMT-Basics, Intermediates, and Paramedics.

The PEPP Course began in 1990 as a distant vision of the California Pediatric Emergency and Critical Care Coalition and the California EMSC Project, funded by the California EMS Authority.

In 1992, the coalition's Pediatric Education for Paramedics (PEP) Task Force joined with the American College of Emergency Physician's Pediatric Emergency Medicine Committee and published Pediatric Education Guidelines for Paramedics. These guidelines were the first national consensus curriculum on prehospital pediatrics. Subsequently, a National PEP Task Force was formed which brought together representatives from the Florida Technical Advisory Panel for EMSC, the California PEP Task Force, and several other pediatric prehospital education groups. The new National PEP Task Force was funded by the Florida Emergency Medicine Foundation, who assumed a major leadership role in the project, and by the California EMS Authority.

In 1995, the National PEP Task Force produced its first course, the PEP Course, which built upon the outstanding work of several state EMSC projects, especially The Washington Pediatric Prehospital Care Project headed by Dena Brownstein and The California Pediatric Airway Project by Marianne Gausche-Hill.

In 1998, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) established a National Steering Committee to restructure and expand the course. The AAP entered into a key partnership with Jones and Bartlett Publishers--a publisher with experience and a strong commitment to quality EMS education--to produce the materials. The goal was to create a comprehensive, innovative, and highly visual pediatric course for both BLS and ALS providers.

Over a two year period, the AAP's National Steering Committee completely revised and upgraded the PEP Course with the latest educational concepts and clinical advances for prehospital professionals. The committee chose the new name, the PEPP Course, to reflect the wider audience--all BLS and ALS prehospital providers. In developing the PEPP course recommendations, the National PEPP Steering Committee carefully reviewed the most current data on the efficacy, safety, and feasibility of pediatric prehospital interventions. Where scientific research is not definitive, the recommendations derive from expert opinion and clinical experience in hospitals, emergency departments, and pediatric ambulatory setting. The PEPP Course emphasizes careful assessment and BLS care, and supports prudent use of ALS interventions.

The PEPP Course is a dynamic teaching tool that will be subject to ongoing review and modification, in concert with changes in the science of emergency pediatrics and advances in EMS educational design and methodology. The National PEPP Steering Committee is committed to continual course improvement and dissemination to a national and international audience.