EMS Safety Conference Slated for June

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- While it’s difficult to determine the exact number of injuries to EMS providers and patients, officials say nothing will change until responders recognize change is imperative.

In June, a national Culture of Safety conference will be held in the Washington, D.C. area to discuss strategies.

Both the National EMS Advisory Council (NEMSAC) and the Federal Interagency Committee on EMS (FICEMS) have said that safety has been long overlooked, and suggested a national strategy be considered.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) responded, and last year announced a $500,000 discretionary safety grant would fund the initiative.

The American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) won the project, and has been working with a steering committee comprised of members of major EMS-related organizations and agencies to plan the June 27-28 conference.

Stakeholders and the public will be encouraged to give input for the project. People unable to attend will be given the opportunity to send their comments, explained Rick Murray, of ACEP and the project director.

"This is about establishing strategies to change the culture," Murray explained. "We're not going to sit down and come up with a list of unsafe practices and how to correct them."

He explained that to make a difference, EMS providers must change the way they do business. It’s essential, Murray said, that responders adopt a culture of safety in their training, and carry it through their careers.

Murray said the committee has been busy studying how other industries deal with safety. Prior to the conference, a website will be established so participants can get an idea what’s out there already on the subject. Articles also will be made available.

Once the input is gathered, a draft report will be written, and sent out for review. Next June, a national committee will convene to discuss the document before its release, Murray said.

When the proposal was put out for bid last year, federal officials noted: "Emergency Medical Services (EMS) has been identified as a high-risk industry with injuries and deaths among both EMS personnel and the public. EMS personnel are routinely exposed to factors that threaten their personal safety and this, in turn, can impact the safety of the patients they serve.”

They also said while some changes have been made in the health care system. However, "It is not yet clear, however, that these principles have been widely adopted and ingrained by the EMS Community. The principles that create a safer environment -- particularly, leadership that creates and fosters an environment without fear of admitting and learning from mistakes -- are not absent from the community but have not been broadly adopted."

Federal officials went on to say: "The lack of a comprehensive EMS injury data system, capable of collecting, cataloging and reporting standardized EMS crash and non-crash related injury data, severely limits the EMS industry's ability to develop, test and implement mitigation strategies to protect EMS personnel. The task of identifying injury causative factors becomes far too speculative without timely, accurate, complete, integrated and accessible data that includes location, cause, contributing factors, and related activities associated with injuries involving EMS personnel."