A Leadership Obstacle Course

It tells you something about the times we face and need for EMS leadership guidance that even in the recent listless economy, the Pinnacle EMS Leadership & Management Conference continues to grow.

The 2013 event will be August 5–9 at the Omni Plantation, Amelia Island, near Jacksonville, FL. It attracts leaders from all service models to explore the key issues facing the profession. (Go to pinnacle-ems.com for complete info.)

EMS World recently caught up with Jay Fitch, PhD, founding partner of the prominent EMS consulting and management firm Fitch & Associates, which created the show.

What have the recent big changes in our field meant for your organization? What are the common issues folks are asking about?
Money! At the end of the day, people are struggling with the way our services are funded throughout the country. With both the sequestration and cuts in Medicare reimbursement coming at the same time, many municipalities are cash-strapped because of the decline in tax revenues from the recession. It’s extraordinarily difficult for local officials to try to figure out what’s the right move. People are trying to understand what it’s going to take to be sustainable, not just economically but in terms of how healthcare is changing and EMS’ real role in that.

Even as the economy perks up, we’re told we shouldn’t expect fast recoveries for the revenue of EMS systems. Is that your expectation?
That’s absolutely true, and we’re seeing it reflected with clients. The property tax revenues are a longer-term issue. The economy’s starting to improve, people are hiring, and what we’re hearing in the media is that things are starting to look…what nobody would call rosy, but a little less bleak. But we were late getting into it, and in some cases I think we’re going to be late moving through it.

What mistakes do you see systems making in this environment?
Not focusing on improving their own processes. People are so stuck in their own ruts; they don’t see that there are other ways to do things. Nobody is willing to change until the pain of staying exceeds the pain of changing. So for example, for systems that have always worked 24-hours shifts, it’s like, ‘What do you mean we have to match our staffing with demand?’ Nobody wants to do that.

Can you tell us more about the two-part seminar on community paramedic program implementation strategies at this year's show?
Community paramedicine has been the most recent hot topic in EMS, and what we’re seeing is that people are struggling to get their arms around it in terms of how to do it in a way that makes sense, when to do it, and how it should unfold. The first part gets into what it is, and the second part is, once you’ve made the decision to move forward, how you really go about doing that.

Some working models have found ways around early obstacles.
Now that we have legislation in Minnesota, I think there are other areas beginning to look at this and realize there are some fundamental shifts that have to take place for this to move forward. One of those is within our own mind-set about the nature of the service we provide as a profession.

You mean reorienting from reactive to more proactive?
Exactly. The reality is, we cannot afford to get this wrong. I think history has shown, if there’s a void that’s not filled, there will be others who fill it.
When you think about integrated mobile healthcare, we have so much to offer. We understand scheduling, we understand how to move assets, we understand the clinical components of it. So it is a natural progression of where the profession needs to go.

There’s also some content dealing with accountable care organizations. What will that cover?
While that term gets bandied about, I think people don’t always necessarily know what it means for them. Our presenter on this topic, Roxanne Shanks, is uniquely qualified in that she was VP of an integrated healthcare system that won the Malcolm Baldrige Quality Award several years ago, and part of that process led to the emergency services line within that entity. She’s recently become the CEO of LifeFlight Eagle, the air medical program that works with all the hospitals in Kansas City. So she gets what ACOs are all about.

You can also learn more about the role of EMS in mobile healthcare at the Mobile Integrated Healthcare Summit, being held in conjunction with EMS World Expo, September 8–12, in Las Vegas, NV. Go to EMSWorldExpo.com for more information.