How to improve EMS services with different characteristics? During the REEC 2021, the NAEMT members had talked about that.
Is it possible to increase the quality of EMS services? What are the key points that EMS providers can use to measure improvements? These are some of the questions NAEMT discussed with the European partners during the REEC 2021 congress. Especially David Page – NAEMT faculty member and director of the pre-hospital care research firm at UCLA. With a long experience as a paramedic in California, Page had a firm conviction: it is possible to translate good practice into educational standards.
“Absolutely. I think research is one of the most important things that we can do to demonstrate the good we do with education and patient care. There was a great study done in Latin America, in Mexico. It showed that by teaching an EMT PHTLS class, there was increased survival and decreased death in that community. So, we have to tie our education to patient outcomes. And absolutely: it has been done, and we can do it again”.
Is it possible to do it also in Europe, with different kinds of professionals involved in the pre-hospital? TheThat is Yes. This is the reason why NAEMT decided to do REEC2021 in Turin. But, of course, the first step to improving service is to better know it. What do you think about the Italian EMS Service you see in Turin?
“Italian EMS has different resources and organizations. It was fantastic to see such professionalism at a time of pandemic crisis. Worldwide, everyone had to come together and deal with the surge of so many patients. I saw incredible people with fantastic attitudes, wonderful resources, and intelligence to know which resources to send to which types of emergencies. A mixture of the old and the new solutions, and it was such an honor to be able to learn from your system”.
NAEMT is actually present in 78 countries. Pamela Lane, Executive Director for the NAEMT, knows better than no one what kind of challenges are the most important to improving pre-hospital settings worldwide.
“Today, the greatest challenge is to provide global access to quality education that is evidence-based for as many people as possible. So we really work with our partners across the world to ensure that they can access this content. We provide it in various formats: printed, digital, classrooms, virtual meetings through ZOOM. We want to make sure that content reaches the most number of people. And the other greatest challenge is that every country is unique. Every country has a unique EMS system. So we want to ensure that our courses are appropriate for local circumstances. And so, we focus on working with our partners in other countries to ensure that the content is applicable for their pre-hospital providers.
As published in a complete study regarding COVID 19, NAEMT underlines that protection of the paramedics has not been mandatory for the global healthcare providers.
“Yes, we publish a study about that, but what the study showed and confirmed is that pre-hospital providers are often not perceived by the wider healthcare community as being a part of healthcare. So oftentimes, when it comes to funding for ambulance services, professionals are left behind and don’t receive the budget or the priority they need. And so we see this across the world. And it’s something that you know every country needs to address. Pre-hospital is part of the health care system. And it’s also part of public safety, and it needs to be funded and integrated with healthcare to ensure that patients have a continuum of care from the point of pre-hospital all the way through into the emergency room.
