Tag Archive: Clinical Care

How the optimism divide between leaders and providers will shape EMS’ future

In its second year, the EMS Trend Report describes revealing changes in clinical care, finance and the use of technology in EMS

Challenging ALS and BLS standards of emergency medicine to improve patient outcomes and satisfaction By Guillermo Fuentes The term “evidence-based practice” has been used in EMS for more than a decade. The reality is, as a profession, we fail to understand what implementing an evidence-based practice actually means. One of the most influential thinkers on…

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As the EMS adage goes, “If you’ve seen one EMS system, you’ve seen one EMS system.” While that statement reflects the diversity of EMS systems across the United States, it also creates the false sense that every EMS system is entirely different and that EMS leaders can’t learn from each other. Clearly that is not the case. As we see in the premiere edition of the EMS Trend Report, EMS systems across the country share many traits. On the other hand, significant differences do exist in everything from clinical care to salaries to operational benchmarks to hiring requirements.

We asked the members of the National EMS Management Association (NEMSMA) what they thought were the most critical issues plaguing EMS. Though members acknowledged significant concerns, including patient safety, fiscal sustainability and caregiver well-being, there were still some unrecognized elephants in the room that no one wants to see, hear or talk about. Here are those 10 harmful realities of modern EMS and proposed strategies to overcome them.