At its June, 2009, meeting, the National EMS Advisory Council (NEMSAC) adopted a position statement on EMS and the current health reform debate. NEMSAC transmitted the position statement to the Federal Interagency Committee on EMS (FICEMS). The NEMSMA board voted unanimously to endorse the NEMSAC position. It has been reported that the NEMSAC position statement has been delivered to the White House and is in the mix with other such position statements for consideration during the current national debate. Download the position statement by clicking on Read More.

NEMSMA and Best Practices in Emergency Services release results of survey of 450 EMS and fire managers, many of whom report that budget cuts are impacting their response times and staffing.

The National EMS Management Association (NEMSMA) released a white paper at EMS EXPO in October that calls on the EMS industry to make significant improvements in they way in which it defines, educates, trains and credentials those individuals responsible for the management of EMS agencies.

The white paper, titled “Emergency Medical Services Management and Leadership Development in America: An Agenda for the Future,” calls for all national groups representing EMS to come together to agree on standardized nomenclature to define the various levels of EMS management and assign competencies to each of those levels. This effort would be called the National EMS Officers Levels and Competencies Project.

NEMSMA also calls for the creation of the National EMS Officers Training and Education Project to develop model course offerings and model curricula for EMS management that would guide training programs and academic institutions in supporting consensus-identified competencies. Part of that project also would bring together all the major training programs and educational institutions engaged in EMS officer development to engage in future development of EMS management curricula and create a vision and plan for a national EMS officer development and resource center.

Finally, NEMSMA seeks the creation of a national organization to award credentials to EMS managers who are able to demonstrate the competencies defined by the National EMS Officers Levels and Competencies Project.

NEMSMA has moved its listserv to Google groups. This discussion group is open to NEMSMA members. Recent topics include shift scheduling, management books and billing benchmarks. Click the link below to sign up today.