Think Nationally. Act Locally.

There are a lot of new ideas floating around EMS these days.  Compact licensure for EMTs and paramedics just like nurses already have.  Community paramedicine.  New educational standards.  And the list goes on.

Here’s why many of these well-intentioned ideas remain just that — well-intentioned ideas.  Many well-intentioned EMS opinion leaders with well-intentioned ideas have no idea how, or more importantly, where a well-intentioned EMS idea makes into law.

With a few notable exceptions (EMTALA, HIPAA, and CLIA coming to mind immediately), most EMS laws and regulations are creatures of state government.  Overall, emergency medical services are provided at the local level and are regulated by state statutes and administrative rules/regulations.

I see a lot of EMS folks wanting either Congress or some national body (e.g. National Association of State EMS Officials, the National Association of EMTs, or the National Registry of EMTs) to DO SOMETHING, DAMMIT!   I don’t always oppose their ideas (well, except for my healthy dose of skepticism about the so-called “Field EMS Bill.”), but they’re usually barking up the wrong tree.   If you want to make changes to the regulatory framework of EMS, you need to quit looking toward Washington.

As a valued service to my minions and other readers, I’ll tell you the way to fix EMS.  First, learn where your state’s EMS laws are located in statute.  Second, learn where the state administrative regulations regarding EMS can be found and which state agency or agencies create, implement, and enforce these regulations.  Next, learn who your state representative and senator are.  Also, learn who are the senior management in your state’s EMS regulatory entities.  And learn who are the chairs of the legislative committees overseeing EMS laws.

And then, when you want to change how we do EMS, contact those people.  Write, call, email, or better yet see them.  While the results may not be as sexy as going to Washington DC in a hotel doorman’s uniform and getting pictures posted online, the results will be more effective, easier, and might just improve EMS. One state at a time.

Comments

  1. As you know, I mostly do teaching related work in EMS now. One thing that not being on an ambulance has given me is some time to work on this sort of thing.

    I’m amazed by how many people actively working in EMS don’t know where to find the statutes and regulations that control EMS, they don’t even know that there are statutes and regulations controlling EMS.

    In addition to your great advice above, I recommend that people try to get involved in committees at the state level if they exist. The people that generally populate those committees aren’t actively working in the field. Some of them haven’t worked in the field in years, if ever.
    They’ll be the people that complain that they want more people on the committees, but in reality they probably don’t.
    Which is why it’s important that people who work in the field get involved. In my experience, those committees need input from people who know what’s going on in EMS now, not 20 years ago.