What Does an EMS Epidemiologist Do?

Data and research aren’t helpful if they only stay on paper without changing practice, says Morgan Anderson.

Ensuring research results can make an impact on patient care is the ultimate goal for Anderson, who is in a first-of-its-kind position as a staff epidemiologist at ImageTrend, a public safety and healthcare solutions provider based in Minnesota.

The EMS data picture has improved significantly in recent years, Anderson points out. “Even from when I started working with EMS data in 2017,” she says, “the amount of research and other individuals and companies interested in doing more with data has seemed to really explode.”

In addressing the importance of tailoring software for emerging areas such as the opioid crisis and tracking provider stress—which she’s recently been doing at ImageTrend—Anderson notes doing so is crucial to providing the best patient care possible in an efficient manner that encompasses factors such as causes, risk factors, treatment, trends, and benchmarks.

In a typical week Anderson may be writing up a conference abstract, analyzing data from a CrewCare mental health project, diving into data based on a question for which one of the company’s clients or a federal organization needs information, jumping on the phone to answer inquiries about ImageTrend’s services, or participating in a webinar to share education on topics of interest, such as the opioid epidemic, COVID-19, and high-risk populations.

COVID-19 and Other Findings

ImageTrend has conducted several COVID-related projects. One was done in conjunction with the American Heart Association to examine data related to strokes and heart attacks.

“We found that people were delaying calling EMS during the onset of the pandemic, most likely due to fear of possibly contracting COVID-19,” Anderson notes.

Another major project helped establish more appropriate criteria for identifying possible influenza-like illness and COVID-like illness in the prehospital setting.

“Previously established criteria were too specific and more appropriate for the clinic/hospital setting,” says Anderson. “We created a defined list of provider impressions and patient symptoms that would indicate these possible illnesses.”

Some of Anderson’s larger projects include analyzing data from the company’s Collaborate data set, which has more than 30 million EMS incidents and grows daily.

“We are looking at topics of interest to publish meaningful information for the industry and our clients,” she says.

The company recently released its first annual Collaborate report for EMS and plans to publish other works throughout the year not only for EMS but other areas of public safety.

Anderson also works on the company’s CrewCare app, a free mental health resource for first responders, law enforcement, military, and hospital staff.

“We release an annual report of the anonymous data collected throughout the year,” she says. “This data looks at mental health-related risk factors and protective factors. Our hope is that the report provides actionable takeaways for individuals or agencies to incorporate into their resource offerings. For example, the need for agencies to help offer more support in certain areas such as weight loss, smoking cessation, or counseling.

“We attend a variety of conferences every year where we present data and see what others are doing,” Anderson adds. “It really inspires us to make sure we are looking at data that is important to the industry.”

An Exciting New Frontier

Working with such vast amounts of data that has been underutilized for many years is a responsibility Anderson has felt to be energizing.

“When I first started my position, I was not only in awe at the amount of prehospital/EMS data that I would get to work with, but also the excitement from our clients to want to do more with their data,” she says.

In previous research Anderson conducted in graduate school and in her post as an epidemiologist at the U.S. Army Public Health Command, she recalls it was a “constant worry to make sure we had enough data points and that our sample size was big enough.

“This was not a concern at ImageTrend, given our large customer base and their willingness to participate in research,” she says. “It is an epidemiologist’s dream come true.”

Anderson originally planned to become a physical therapist, but through her courses and internships developed a strong interest in health from the preventative side on a population level.

“Physical therapy focuses on one patient at a time, such as a 65-year-old female who falls in her home and needs to regain her strength. I kept going back to questioning, ‘What could have been done to prevent that individual from falling in the first place?’

“The best part of public health is there are so many areas of interest—injury prevention, infectious disease, environmental health, and food safety, for example. I love being able to look at so many different areas of health.”

Anderson earned a master’s degree in public health at the Medical College of Wisconsin and continued taking epidemiology and biostatistics graduate courses at Drexel University.

She pursued a fellowship with the Army Public Health Command in Maryland, which turned into a full-time position in which she researched injury prevention during military physical training.

“I really enjoyed the process of research where I collected data in the field, analyzed the data, and published and presented the findings,” she says.

Six years later Anderson joined ImageTrend in Minnesota. Soon after, ImageTrend created a Clinical and Research Services team that included EMS veteran Douglas Butler, Jr., as director of clinical services and others with real-world EMS, fire, and hospital experience. This team helps propel the company’s involvement with industry research that can be put into relevant practice.

A Place to Start

Anderson says many of ImageTrend’s clients indicate they’ve always wanted to do more with their data to improve patient care and best utilize their resources, but they didn’t always know where to start when it came to looking at their data.

“They love that I’m able to help them do more with not only their data, but the industry at large with our Collaborate data set, which allows them to compare how they’re doing as an agency,” she says, adding that often leads to clients starting their own projects.

“I am really honored to get to be part of something I feel is really making a difference in this industry now and into the future. We are just scratching the surface.”

Carol Brzozowski is a freelance journalist based in south Florida. A former daily newspaper reporter, her work has been published in more than 200 media outlets.