Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals

A UCSF Medical Center helicopter flies beside the corner of a modern glass hospital building, with the UCSF Medical Center sign visible near the rooftop helipad against a clear blue sky.

The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) helps develop evidence that shapes how emergency departments across the United States care for sick and injured children. Established by the Health Resources and Services Administration's Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) program, PECARN is the first federally funded multi-institutional research network dedicated to advancing pediatric emergency medicine. The network brings together leading pediatric emergency departments and EMS systems to conduct rigorous, collaborative research across the continuum of emergency care.

In 2019, the UC San Francisco Department of Emergency Medicine joined PECARN as part of its San Francisco-Oakland, Providence, Atlanta Research Collaborative (SPARC) Node. SPARC is one of seven Research Node Centers that comprise PECARN, each of which links regional hospital emergency departments with an EMS affiliate. Members of the SPARC Node include:

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals (San Francisco and Oakland)
Hasbro Children’s Hospital / Brown University (Providence, RI)
Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta / Emory University (Atlanta, GA)
Alameda County EMS (as the EMS affiliate)

Through SPARC, we contribute both clinical and research leadership, leveraging UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals’ dual-campus system and strong EMS partnerships to improve outcomes for children in diverse, high-volume urban environments.

In addition, our faculty collaborate closely with Michelle Lin, MD, and Academic Life in Emergency Medicine (ALiEM) to build and maintain SPARC-related online resources, including the ALiEM SPARC Research page, which extends the reach and impact of PECARN findings to a broader educational and clinical audience.

Emergency department staff transport a pediatric patient on a stretcher outside UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital at UCSF Medical Center, moving past a parked ambulance at the hospital entrance.

About PECARN

PECARN’s mission is to advance evidence-based pediatric emergency care through multicenter research that reflects the diversity of children, families, and health care systems nationwide. By connecting academic, community, urban, general, and children’s hospitals with EMS agencies, PECARN provides the infrastructure and leadership needed to:

Conduct large-scale, collaborative studies that address high-impact clinical questions
Support sustained research collaboration among EMSC investigators and clinicians
Foster information-sharing and best practices across the pediatric emergency medicine community

Collectively, PECARN emergency departments serve approximately 1.3 million acutely ill and injured children each year, with nine EMS affiliates who facilitate more than 113,000 ambulance transports annually. This reach enables UCSF and its partners to help shape national standards of care, ensuring every child receives the safest and most effective treatment possible in an emergency.

UCSF’s role

The UCSF Department of Emergency Medicine contributes to PECARN through:

Research leadership & coordination: Designing and implementing multi-site studies that advance pediatric emergency care
Data integration and informatics: Linking hospital and prehospital datasets to support large-scale research efforts
Clinical protocol development: Creating and refining decision rules, triage criteria, and evidence-based care pathways
Translational implementation: Integrating PECARN findings into clinical practice and disseminating them regionally
Education & mentorship: Training the next generation of pediatric emergency clinician-researchers

“PECARN is one of the most highly regarded pediatric research networks in the country. Being part of this network allows us to collaborate nationally and apply findings that directly improve the care we provide to children in our emergency departments.”

– Jacqueline Grupp-Phelan, MD, MPH

Chief and Vice Chair, Pediatric Emergency Medicine

UCSF Department of Emergency Medicine

Our impact

Since joining PECARN in 2019, UCSF has strengthened the network’s capacity to generate high-quality, practice-changing research in pediatric emergency medicine. In 2023, UCSF received four additional years of PECARN funding, ensuring continued collaboration and through 2027.

60,000+ pediatric emergency visits

Each year, UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals in San Francisco and Oakland provide emergency care for more than 60,000 children and adolescents.

6 multicenter PECARN research studies

Since 2019, the UCSF Department of Emergency Medicine has participated in six PECARN studies, including PediDOSE, ProMPT BOLUS, HEADACHE, STArT, C-SPINE, and CT Validation.

1,100+ pediatric patients

As of February 2026, more than 1,100 children were enrolled in PECARN studies supported by our department.