EMS Benchmark Program

March 1, 2002

The Office of Rural Community Affairs is providing this information

to Texas EMS providers for the North Central EMS Institute (NCEMSI)

for their EMS Benchmark Project.

I hope rural, frontier and urban EMS providers will take this

opportunity to show our best practices to the rest of the country.

Other states throughout the US are participating in this program.

The North Central EMS Institute sent out the following statement:

The goal of the NCEMSI Benchmark project is to identify and publish

best practices based on the information we collect and analyze. The

data we are collecting is not clinical in nature but mainly for

business operations. We have formed new teams to create and refine

specific data collection sets for billing, dispatch and fleet. The

data collected should aid ambulance services with diminishing

reimbursement in their efforts to become more efficient. The AAA

released a number of member alerts last week stating that the Fee

Schedule will be released in the February 27, 2002 issue of the

Federal Register. Efficiency will soon become a necessity.

As a participant of the project we ask the following of you:

1. Complete the attached Excel spreadsheet with actual data from

2001 for your operation(s) the best you can from using our data

definitions.

2. Inform us if you do not understand a data definition, so we

can re-write it.

3. Submit information for our current set, plus additional sets

as they become available such as billing, if they apply to your

service.

We are seeking information from at least 120 ambulance services for

this phase. In order to give you back valid information and maintain

privacy, we need an adequate number of services in the databank. We

believe 120 ambulance services will produce enough of each type of

service to provide useful information. 120 ambulance services is

roughly 1% of ambulance services in the U.S. Please feel free to

recruit additional services to participate in the project.

Please submit your data before March 15, 2002.

After completing the spreadsheet save it and email the excel

spreadsheet to a Goodreau, Executive Director North Central EMS

ative briana@...

If you are interested in participating in this project, please email

me and I will send you both files.

Thank you for your participation!

Alan M. , A.A.S., L.P.

Rural EMS Coordinator

Office of Rural Community Affairs

(P)

(F)

Toll Free 1-

alewis@...

I Thessalonians 5:28

March 1, 2002

It is great that we are making an effort to benchmark. However, there are

many unanswered questions with this offer.

1. How are patient confidentiality and patient rights protected?

2. How is provider performance information protected from competitors and

regulatory authorities?

3. Who will have access to this information?

4. What type of research will be garnered from this information - academic,

political?

5. What information sharing and support do participants get out of this?

6. Who are the officers of NCEMSI, and what is the organizational

structure?

7. Is NCEMSI a 501c3?

I would look in to participating if more information is publicly provided in

a website or mailout.

aloha,

mikey

alanlewislp wrote:

> The Office of Rural Community Affairs is providing this information

> to Texas EMS providers for the North Central EMS Institute (NCEMSI)

> for their EMS Benchmark Project.

>

> I hope rural, frontier and urban EMS providers will take this

> opportunity to show our best practices to the rest of the country.

> Other states throughout the US are participating in this program.

>

> The North Central EMS Institute sent out the following statement:

>

> The goal of the NCEMSI Benchmark project is to identify and publish

> best practices based on the information we collect and analyze. The

> data we are collecting is not clinical in nature but mainly for

> business operations. We have formed new teams to create and refine

> specific data collection sets for billing, dispatch and fleet. The

> data collected should aid ambulance services with diminishing

> reimbursement in their efforts to become more efficient. The AAA

> released a number of member alerts last week stating that the Fee

> Schedule will be released in the February 27, 2002 issue of the

> Federal Register. Efficiency will soon become a necessity.

>

> As a participant of the project we ask the following of you:

> 1. Complete the attached Excel spreadsheet with actual data from

> 2001 for your operation(s) the best you can from using our data

> definitions.

> 2. Inform us if you do not understand a data definition, so we

> can re-write it.

> 3. Submit information for our current set, plus additional sets

> as they become available such as billing, if they apply to your

> service.

> We are seeking information from at least 120 ambulance services for

> this phase. In order to give you back valid information and maintain

> privacy, we need an adequate number of services in the databank. We

> believe 120 ambulance services will produce enough of each type of

> service to provide useful information. 120 ambulance services is

> roughly 1% of ambulance services in the U.S. Please feel free to

> recruit additional services to participate in the project.

>

> Please submit your data before March 15, 2002.

>

> After completing the spreadsheet save it and email the excel

> spreadsheet to a Goodreau, Executive Director North Central EMS

> ative briana@...

>

> If you are interested in participating in this project, please email

> me and I will send you both files.

>

> Thank you for your participation!

>

> Alan M. , A.A.S., L.P.

> Rural EMS Coordinator

> Office of Rural Community Affairs

> (P)

> (F)

> Toll Free 1-

> alewis@...

> I Thessalonians 5:28

>

March 1, 2002

Ditto!!

Ron

Re: EMS Benchmark Program