EMS Survey Uncovers Deficiencies
September 2009 Â emspromag.com 9 News & Technologies News & Technologies Considering that emergency medical services are an integral part of our nation's health care system, The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) has pub lished a new position statement, EMS in Health Care Reform. The position statement advocates for the inclusion of the following EMS principles in the development of national health care reform legislation: 1. Emergency and nonemergency ambulance services are covered services. 2. Fee schedules for medical insur ance are based on the cost of provid ing the service as determined by the GAO study on ambulance costs. 3. EMS and emergency physicians are active participants in the process of health care reform. 4. Analysis is conducted to deter mine the impact of health care reform on emergency department overcrowd ing and the surge capacity of EMS sys tems specifically, and health care in general, in the event of major disasters or public health emergencies. 5. EMS can contribute to more opti mal health care and achieve health care savings when integrated with pri mary care and allowed to refer or transport patients to a variety of med ically appropriate facilities. 6. Cost savings should not be achieved by reducing the capacity of EMS to respond with clinically mean ingful response times or a certain capacity to surge. 7. EMS data is collected and avail able for improvements in EMS care, and is integrated with data on the overall health care system. The statement notes that emer gency medical services are a critical component of the nation's emer gency and trauma care system, with hundreds of thousands of EMS prac titioners providing more than 16 mil lion medical transports each year. Speed and quality of emergency medical services are critical factors in a patient's ultimate outcome. As Kurt Krumperman, Chair of the NAEMT Advocacy Committee, explains: EMS is not only a critical part of the health care system; it is fundamental to the health care safe ty net that exists for all who live in the United States. For many, it is the path to accessing the health care sys tem, and as such must not be jeopar dized, particularly in changing times. EMS NAEMT Releases New Position Statement on EMS in Health Care Reform EMS_0909_p06-13:Layout 1 9/4/09 3:22 PM Page 9