National EMS Education Standards Communiqué #6

[Guest guest]

National EMS Education Standards Communiqué #6

15 December 2006

After spending the early months of the fall gathering material from

the Expert Writers, the National EMS Education Standards Project

Staff, Provider Level Leaders, and Content Level Leaders met in

November. Primary goals of the Pittsburgh meeting were to write

initial drafts of the Education Standards and to edit the

Instructional Guidelines for the EMT and Paramedic levels. The

format for the initial drafts was based on the feedback received

from the May 2006 Stakeholders Summit in Silver Spring, land.

Several important discussions took place during the week. First,

feedback the group had received earlier from many stakeholders

indicated their desire to return to traditional patient assessment

terminology, that is, a return to the primary and secondary

assessment approaches employed by other healthcare providers. The

Project Team agreed with the Stakeholders that a more traditional

approach would be beneficial and the Education Standards being

drafted will reflect that change.

Second, the Project Team felt it was important for the Education

Standards to require the EMT student to have patient contact and

interaction as part of the education program. Interaction between

EMT students and patients has not been universally implemented in

current education programs and will be part of the new Education

Standards draft.

Finally, another discussion involved the instructional detail

related to important foundations at the EMT level. The Project Team

felt that advances in medical and trauma care now demand a greater

understanding of the basic pathophysiology associated with shock,

acute coronary syndromes, and airway, ventilation, and oxygenation.

The second writing meeting is scheduled for early February 2007. The

focus of that meeting will be to complete the initial drafts of the

Education Standards for the Emergency Medical Responder and Advanced

EMT levels. When the first drafts of the education standards and

instructional guidelines are completed for all four levels of EMS

provider, they will be posted on the NEMSES.org web site so the EMS

community can review and comment on them.

As always, information can be found about the project at nemses.org

Kenny Navarro

Project Coordinator