Rural EMS Agenda for the Future

The National Rural Health Association has joined with the National Association of State EMS Directors (NASEMSD) and the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health to develop a consensus document that will serve as a guide for national policy and funding of rural and frontier EMS across the country.

The Rural/Frontier EMS Agenda for the Future will be based on NHTSA's 1996 EMS Agenda for the Future to define need and create priorities for EMS systems in rural America. The first phase of the project was a Web-based collection period that invited EMS providers to submit issues, best practices or ideas about providing rural/frontier EMS that they would like to see included in the guide. The response was so positive that the collection period was extended two months, says Kevin McGinnis, NASEMSD program advisor and principal investigator/author for the project.

"We had well over 100 submissions to the website alone, with people discussing the issues that make providing rural/frontier EMS difficult, as well as some best practices and ideas about overcoming barriers to providing care in those settings," he says.

In addition to the obvious concerns about long transport times and employee retention, respondents expressed concern about availability of training, particularly local training; availability of ALS in rural communities; availability of money for communications equipment and vehicles; interoperability of radio systems; and ability, or lack thereof, to be reimbursed for calls that don't involve transports.

"We have already compiled an initial draft, with 14 chapters addressing specific issues like communications, public access and system finance," says McGinnis. "The draft, which will be on the website by the time this is in print, explains where we want to go with the Agenda and how we propose getting there.

"We see the Agenda as serving two major purposes," McGinnis adds. "One is as guidance for national, federal and state policymakers and systems funders. The second is to give local services some ideas about how they might start building their systems for the future."

For more information on the Rural/Frontier EMS Agenda for the Future, visit www.nrharural.org/EMSagenda.

-MN