EMS Human Resources

• Equip and staff to completely meet the daily call volume of emergency calls and patient transports.

• Maintain a cadre of part-timers as regular staff (provides surge capacity and trained candidates for full-time vacancies).

• Recruit new EMTs from undergraduate programs and professional schools such as colleges of nursing, medicine, public health, pharmacy, and dentistry.

• Establish a community paramedic program to fill existing gaps in health care.

Financial, Tangible, and Talent Resources

• Educate EMS volunteers on how to find and apply for federal and other grant funding.

• Look for ways to use nontraditional resources, and for new ways to use traditional resources:

  • Develop expanded roles for community members (ham radio operators, civil air patrol and flying clubs).

  • Identify community assets and resources that can be called upon (e.g., extra generators, faith-based or other community groups that can serve as callers for a phone tree).

Planning and Practice

• Participate in regional preparedness planning.

• Strive to have equipment and personnel interoperability across jurisdictions that provide mutual aid.

• Practice and constantly update MCI plans.

• Adopt best practices from other industries (e.g., vehicle tracking, crash notification, automatic weather reporting, preferred travel corridors).

• Look for creative approaches to enhancing care, such as telemedicine (discussed in detail in Chapter 7).

• Optimize air medical capability and safety (e.g., designated landing zones, fuel and support services, automatic weather reporting, night vision goggles).

Suggestions Specifically for States

• Establish command and control systems that integrate local, state, and federal emergency response using a common operating structure.

• Develop safe, secure, and redundant communication systems that can function without the commercial power grid or commercial communication networks.

• Define the authority to quickly alter standards of care and scope of practice.

• Determine the necessary knowledge skills and abilities needed for large-scale response and provide training when appropriate using just-in-time strategies.

• Stockpile and provide the necessary surge assets including personnel, communications equipment, durable medical equipment, and medical supplies.

• Establish a quality improvement process that reviews the system based on actual or exercised response.