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As of March 27, 2007, HRSA's contract for
the Rural EMS and Trauma Technical Assistance Center (REMSTTAC)
will expire.
Updates on all REMSTTAC products (see below)
as they become available will be posted as well as other rural
EMS and trauma related activities of interest. Additionally,
REMSTTAC is working closely with the Rural Assistance Center
to ensure that all products are available through that excellent
rural healthcare resource as well. Emergency
Medical Services page at the Rural Assistance Center (not
a government website)
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The Health Resources and Services Administration's
Rural EMS and Trauma Technical Assistance Center has completed
9 products to assist rural EMS managers and policy level personnel
in strengthening their local EMS agencies. The products have
all been submitted to the Office of Rural Health Policy and
are in various stages of approval, printing and web-based dissemination.
The title, a brief description of the product and the current
status includes:
This resource provides contact information
for individuals and agencies interested in improving their
response to agriculturally related products.
Available on-line at: Full-Text
Documents
This product includes a Microsoft Excel
™ worksheet and a written instruction manual that allows rural
EMS agencies to calculate a detailed budget. The value of
"volunteer" time is included in the calculations. Once completed
the worksheet can be imported into Intuit's QuickBooks ™.
Available on-line at: Full-Text
Documents
This is a companion document to the
Rural and Frontier EMS Agenda for the Future (National Rural
Health Association, 2004). The Service Chief's Guide outlines
specific activities that rural EMS agency managers can participate
in to position their individual agency to take achieve the
vision outlined in the Agenda.
Available on-line at: Full-Text
Documents
This document builds on the concept
outlined in the Rural and Frontier EMS Agenda for the Future
that suggests that local communities should participate in
a structured planning process to determine the attributes
of the EMS system serving their community.
Available on-line at: Full-Text
Documents
This manuscript reviews the current
and potential role of distance education in meeting the training
needs for rural and frontier prehospital care providers. A
must read for agencies considering a transition to distance
or distributive learning applications.
Available on-line at: Full-Text
Documents
This paper compares the findings of
the Institute of Medicine's Future of Emergency Care reports
with their previous work on Rural Health and with the Rural
and Frontier EMS Agenda for the Future and HRSA Model Trauma
System Planning and Evaluation document. It clearly identifies
the similarities and overlaps of the recommendations and approaches
contained in these and other documents.
Available on-line at: Full-Text
Documents
This report captures the essence of
several town hall meetings that were conducted by HRSA's REMSTTAC
during which rural EMS providers identified various issues
of interest and concern to their local agency.
Available on-line at: Full-Text
Documents
Designed for new local EMS agency managers
or service chief's this document provides an overview of the
issues and activities that he/she should be aware of and involved
in from the outset of their tenure. Designed as a "survival
guide" until the individual can receive more formal training
on various aspects of his/her responsibilities.
Status: Final editing and formatting
in progress.
This manuscript reviews the previous
literature pertaining to the risks for ambulance crashes and
suggests policy and technology recommendations to reduce the
incidence and severity of such crashes.
Status: Final editing and formatting
in progress.
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On February 22, 2007,
the EMS Chiefs of Canada released their white paper The Future
of EMS in Canada. Canada is the third country to release an
EMS futures document in as many years. Taking Healthcare to
the Patient: Transforming the NHS Ambulance Services was released
in the UK in 2005, and Emergency Medical Services: At the Crossroads
was released in the US by the Institute of Medicine in 2006.
Each of these documents builds on the vision of EMS becoming
more integrated into health care systems published in the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration's EMS Agenda for the Future
(1996) and the National Rural Health Association's Rural and
Frontier EMS Agenda for the Future (2004).
These documents and a related one - An Exploration
of Expanded Paramedic Healthcare Roles for Queensland - are
available for download (only a summary of the final IOM document
is available for download - the final edition is not yet published)
on the International Roundtable on Community Paramedicine website
at: http://www.ircp.info, under the Future of EMS tab. (not
a government website).
The Future of EMS in Canada calls for the
fulfillment of six strategies:
- A Clear Core Identity for EMS
- Stable Funding
- Systematic Improvement
- Personnel Development
- Leadership Support
- Mobilized Healthcare (integration)
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A handy little tool to show folks the cost
savings, or said another way, financial contributions volunteers
have on rural services. Download at:
Cost Savings
Calculator (not a government website)
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The Institute of Medicine formally released
the reports on the future of emergency care on June 14, 2006.
The release of the report involved a variety of activities,
including a web cast, press conferences and dissemination workshops.
These landmark reports will help guide congressional leaders
and policy makers about EMS and trauma care for several years
to come. One of the commissioned papers for the project was
on rural emergency care and discussions about rural and frontier
issues and needs are scattered throughout the three reports.
Prepublication copies of the three reports (hospital, prehospital
and pediatric) can be found on the following website: The
Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health System
(not a government website). The final published reports will
be available in May of 2007.
Four dissemination workshops were held
across the country. Each of the four workshops focused on a
different aspect of the reports. The first meeting, held in
September, 2006, in Salt Lake City focused on the potential
impact of the reports on rural areas of the nation. The workshop
series concluded with a capstone event in Washington DC in December,
2006. Several hundred people were at the events with many of
them providing oral or written comments concerning the reports.
Additional information on the workshops can be found at: The
Future of Emergency Care Series: Dissemination Workshops.
(not a government website). A workshop summary report will also
be available in May of 2007.
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The HRSA Trauma and EMS program unveiled the
Model Trauma System Planning and Evaluation Document at the
recent Trauma Leadership meeting in Washington DC. This document
represents more than two years of development, vetting and field
testing. Of particular interest is a set of Benchmarks, Indicators
and Scoring criteria that allow trauma care systems to conduct
a baseline assessment, establish benchmarks and mark progress
toward the attainment of those goals. An Adobe Acrobat ™
version is available at www.hrsa.gov/trauma/model.htm.
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The Rural and Frontier EMS Agenda for
the Future is now available for free download in Adobe Acrobat
™ format at the following address: RFEMSAgenda
(not a government website). Limited quantities of printed FREMS
Agendas are available for purchase at www.nrharural.org/online-store/scstore/
(not a government website).
To help businesses develop specific plans
to protect employees and maintain operations during a pandemic,
HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, joined by Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, released
a Business
Pandemic Influenza Planning Checklist today. The checklist
was presented at a Business Roundtable meeting with chief executive
officers of leading companies in Washington, DC.
The new checklist identifies specific activities
that companies can do now to prepare for a pandemic and will
also be helpful in other types of emergencies. Developed by
the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, the checklist suggests companies plan how
they would forecast employee absences during a pandemic; disseminate
information to employees; establish flexible work sites; and
establish policies for employees who have been exposed, are
suspected to be ill or become ill at the worksite.
Additional information can be found
at www.pandemicflu.gov.
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The CPR Anytime™ for Family and
Friends Personal Learning Program allows families, friends and
the general public - those who most likely would never attend
a traditional CPR course - to learn the core skills of CPR in
just 22 minutes using their own personal kit.
The kit contains everything needed to learn
basic CPR, and skills can be learned anywhere, from the comfort
of a family home to a large community group setting. Also, at
under $30, the CPR Anytime™ kit is a cost-effective way
for the entire family to learn CPR at home. The American Heart
Association's goal is for each person who receives the kit to
take it home and share it with family members, increasing the
number of potential rescuers.
Each CPR Anytime™ for Family and Friends
kit contains:
- A personal, inflatable CPR manikin - "Mini
Anne"
- CPR Anytime Skills Practice DVD
- An American Heart Association CPR for Family
and Friends booklet
- Accessories for the program
The American Heart Association aims
to help increase the number of bystanders trained in CPR to
20 million per year by 2010. CPR Anytime™ will play an
important role in meeting that goal. For more information go
to www.cpranytime.org
(not a government website).
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The City
and Rural KIDS COUNT Data Book uses 10 key measures of child
well-being to track the conditions of children living in the
rural (non-metropolitan) portion of each state as well as 71
large cities across the country. This information may be useful
when developing applications for funding or making presentations
to key policy makers. (not a U.S. government
web site)
The North Central EMS Institute and several
other prominent national sponsors will be holding a follow-up
meeting to the meeting held on June, 2005. The 2005 meeting focused
on identifying a limited set of performance measures for the EMS
industry. A pilot set of indicators that can be derived from the
data elements included in the NEMSIS data set was established.
For the past two years select EMS agencies have worked with the
indicators to determine their efficacy. The 2007 meeting will
report on those findings and move toward the development of "systems"
outcome measures. See EMS
Outcomes (not a government website)
The challenges and opportunities for living
and working in rural America vary remarkably. As they say, "if
you've seen one rural community, you've seen one rural community."
Alaska's geography, weather, culture and history have resulted
in an unusual health care system. The "Alaska Experience" is an
opportunity to get an informative glimpse of where and under what
conditions primary and acute healthcare services are offered.
Learn how challenges faced by Alaskan health care facilities can
spark ideas for solutions in your own state, community and facility.
For more information go to: NRHA
Annual Conference. (not a government website)
The NASEMSO Mid-Year Meeting purpose is
to address emergency medical services and homeland security legislative
and regulatory issues, the EMS work force, NASEMSO project updates
(pandemic flu, mentor program, air medical task force, intelligent
transportation/traffic incident management developments, model
trauma plan), the National EMS Education Standards project, and
more. For additional information see: National
Association of State EMS Officials. (not a government website)
The Third Annual NRHA Quality Conference
offers practical information you can use to improve the quality
of health care in your rural setting. National experts and practitioners
from the field will speak from their own experience and provide
examples of how to develop patient-centered care, successfully
network with facilities in your community and implement a health
information technology system that works. For additional information
see: NRHA
Quality Initiative. (not a government website)
The 2007 IRCP meeting will be held in Queensland,
Australia, on September 19-21, 2007. This is the third annual
meeting of this interest group. Additional details will be made
available on the following website: International
Roundtable of Community Paramedicine (not a government website)
Nearly 50 delegates from Australia, Canada, Scotland and the
United States met July 27 - 28, 2005, in Nova Scotia to share
ideas on integrating rural EMS providers into rural health care
delivery systems. The historic meeting was hosted by National
Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) founder Ron Stewart,
MD, and the Emergency Health Services (EHS) Division of the
Nova Scotia Department of Health at the Medical School of Dalhousie
University in Halifax. The delegates convened a second meeting
July 24-27 at the Mayo Clinic in the United States to continue
the discussion and to hear about lessons learned in the last
year. Monthly conference calls on a variety of topics have been
conducted to keep the group engaged and moving forward.
The 2007NRITS conference will provide opportunity
for transportation professionals to obtain information on rural
transportation issues, exchange valuable ideas and information
and information regarding the challenges faced in rural transportation.
A special emphasis will be placed on rural intelligent transportation
and public safety issues and applications. National
Rural ITS Conference. (not a government website)
The Critical Illness and Trauma Foundation
will be hosting the Rural and Frontier EMS and Trauma Summit at
the Coeur d' Alene Resort in Idaho from May 20 - 24, 2008. The
Summit at the Lake will build on the successes of the inaugural
Rural and Frontier EMS Summit at the Summit held in 2006 in Big
Sky MT. The Summit at the Lake will review recent developments
and highlight future opportunities for rural and frontier EMS
and trauma systems. This meeting is of particular importance to
federal, state and agency level decision makers and service managers.
The preliminary speaker's list is filled with key policy makers
from the federal government along with leaders from private industry.
Second Rural and Frontier
EMS and Trauma Summit (not a government website)
The Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP) promotes
better health care service in rural America. As an essential part
of that mission, ORHP seeks to preserve and improve EMS and trauma
care in rural and frontier areas of the U.S.
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