I hope you had a great EMS Week, with food, appreciation and some take-home items. We need to talk about the tremendous changes coming to out-of-hospital care and the need for your immediate involvement with two national policy documents.
New EMS Agenda
Modern EMS was built from six years of federal “seed” funding that started in 1973 as part of President Johnson’s Great Society, known as the Emergency Medical Services Systems (EMSS) Act. This was in response to National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council’s 1966 report Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society. The act funded the establishment of 300 EMS systems, identified EMS caregiver training levels, developed ambulance specifications, and described EMS radio communication requirements. Because the federal focus was on trauma, most of the federal EMS components were assigned to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) within the Department of Transportation.
EMS Agenda for the Future (1996) was published by NHTSA “to determine the most important directions for future EMS development, incorporating input from a broad, multidisciplinary spectrum of EMS stakeholders. This document provides guiding principles for the continued evolution of EMS, focusing on out-of-facility aspects of the system.” This effort also generated EMS Educational Agenda for the Future (2000). This document is the source for the current ems curricula for EMR, EMT, Advanced EMT, and Paramedic.
The replacement document, EMS Agenda 2050, is almost through its two-year development project. The last opportunity for public comment closes May 31, 2018.
While EMS remains a state-regulated activity, NHTSA provides guidance through documents like the National EMS Scope of Practice Model. While the EMS Educational Agenda for the Future laid out the goals and objectives, the National EMS Core Content, released in 2004, defines the domain of out-of-hospital care. The National EMS Scope of Practice Model divides the core content into levels of practice, defining the minimum corresponding skills and knowledge for each level.
The National Association of State Emergency Medical Services Officials (NASEMSO), under contract from the USDOT NHTSA Office of EMS, is soliciting feedback on the 3rd and final draft of the 2018 National EMS Scope of Practice Model prior to publication. Over the past 18 months, a Subject Matter Expert Panel has solicited public comment and updated the 2007 document to guide an upcoming revision to the National EMS Education Standards. The Practice Model suggests the practice requirements prior to supervised or individual work experience at the levels of an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR), Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), Advanced Emergency Medical Technician (AEMT), or Paramedic. The last opportunity to comment closes May 31, 2018.
These two documents will impact the job you will do as an out-of-hospital caregiver. One covers your work environment and expectations, the other provides the national scope of clinical practice. Please take 15 minutes to read these documents.