SAEM 2017: Best practices in EMS oversight needed to improve pre-hospital care

Emergency medical services are often the first to provide acute care to critically ill patients. These services can include private, government or publicly owned paramedic and ambulance services, as well as fire departments with EMS personnel.

But delivery of that care isn't always seamless. Nor are the quality levels universal.

The divide was the basis of a 2015 Institute of Medicine report that highlighted fragmentation among EMS systems in the United States and a lack of accountability and coordination at the state and federal levels.

The findings compelled IHPI member Mahshid Abir, M.D., assistant professor of emergency medicine at UM and director of the University of Michigan Acute Care Research Unit, to evaluate the quality of EMS oversight in Michigan and explore how EMS systems could work together to improve patient care.

"This report identifies best practices in EMS oversight and informs related state policy in order to improve pre-hospital care quality," says Abir, who presented her findings at the 2017 Society for Academic Emergency Medicine annual meeting in Orlando, Florida.

Through informing state policy regarding EMS oversight, Abir hopes the study and recommendations can help improve pre-hospital care quality and unify EMS services and other key stakeholders, and perhaps become an example for other states of how these services can work together more effectively through high-quality EMS oversight.

"Medical control authorities can serve as a common point where stakeholders across the state, including hospitals, EMS agencies and police and fire departments can come together and improve pre-hospital care and patient outcomes," Abir says. "Collaboration is key."