Objectives: Objectives of the Pediatric Emergency Research Network's (PERN's) meeting included (1) learn about each of the participating network's missions, goals, and infrastructure; (2) share important contributions each network has made to the creation of new knowledge; (3) discuss "best practices" to improve each network's effectiveness; and (4) explore the potential for a collaborative research project as proof of concept that would help us promote quality of care of the acutely ill and injured child/youth globally.
Methods: In October 2009, a multiday meeting was attended by 18 delegates representing the following pediatric emergency medicine research networks: Pediatric Emergency Medicine Collaborative Research Committee (United States), Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (United States), Pediatric Emergency Research of Canada (Canada), Paediatric Research in Emergency Departments International Collaborative (Australia and New Zealand), and Research in European Pediatric Emergency Medicine (15 countries in Europe and the Middle East).
Results: The inaugural meeting of PERN demonstrated that there is a common desire for high-quality research and the dissemination of this research to improve health and outcomes of acutely ill and injured children and youths throughout the world. Presently, the PERN group is in the final stages of developing a protocol to assess H1N1 risk factors with the collection of retrospective data.
Conclusions: Several members of PERN will be gathering at the International Conference on Emergency Medicine in Singapore, where the group will be presenting information about the H1N1 initiative. The PERN group is planning to bring together all 5 networks later in 2010 to discuss future global collaborations.