Alaska EMS Provider,
I am pleased to share with you the first edition of the Alaska
EMS Vitals Newsletter. We have developed this newsletter in an effort to keep
you informed of local, state and federal EMS changes and will be sending it out
monthly. So if you are receiving this Newsletter please share it with
your colleagues!
You can sign up to receive future copies of EMS Vitals by
providing your email address to us via this link.
The State EMS Office appreciates the dedication and service you
bring to your job every day. We see and hear about stories of lives saved and
changed because of your hard work, so thank you. As we continue to improve the
Alaska EMS system over the coming months and years we will need your help. It
is not the work of just the State EMS Office, individual Regions, individual
Agencies or individual Providers that change a system. It takes the concerted
work of all of us together to move our system toward common goals.
Our desire at the State EMS Office is to work closely with
regions, agencies and providers to create a value based EMS system founded on evidence
based medicine, and best practices in order to ensure the best patient care is
delivered with the right resources at the right time.
Please join us in our vision to move Alaska EMS Forward
Together!
Respectfully,
Todd McDowell, State Office EMS Manager
#AKEMSForwardTogether
2018 Public Response Package
The Office of EMS/ Division of Public Health/ Department of Health & Social Services response to public comment and record of public comment is available to read on our Alaska EMS webpage.
EMS Governor's Awards
Accepting nominations now! EMS Award winners will be announced at the State EMS Symposium in November. Please submit your nomination online. All category descriptions, past winners, and downloadable nomination forms can be found on our Alaska EMS website under EMS Awards. You can also email the nomination to EMSAwards@alaska.gov. This year's nomination deadline is August 31, 2018.
Task Force Recruiting
In anticipation of a future rollout
of Alaska’s new scope of practice and the
addition of the AEMT level. The Governor’s Alaska Council of EMS
seeks certified State of Alaska Advanced Level EMS Instructors and subject
matter experts to volunteer on a Task Force to assist with the following tasks:
-
Assist
in developing an implementation strategy/process for the new State of Alaska EMS Scope of Practice as developed by the ACEMS Medical Director’s Committee and approved by ACEMS;
-
Review and recommend educational enhancements to the EMT-1, EMT-2, EMT-3,
(proposed) Advanced EMT and Instructor certification levels; and
- Develop,
edit or amend documents such as the Guide for Education Certification and
Licensure, national education learning objectives, and/or lesson plans that
update instructors and providers to proposed standards and specifically 2018
State of Alaska EMS Scope of Practice.
To apply for the ACEMS Task Force or for further information please refer to the
application which can be found here. All applications are due September 3, 2018.
Letter from the State Medical Director
Greetings to all Alaska EMS Medical Directors,
Administrators and Providers.
I would like to take the opportunity provided by the EMS
Office Newsletter to give you a brief update on the Scope of Practice.
As most of you are aware the long-overdue revision of our EMS
regulations and Scope of Practice (SOP) was posted for public comment and,
guess what? There were a number of
comments! The comments were constructive
and informative for all of us at the State EMS Office.
The SOP revision is the result of the work over the past two
years of the ACEMS Medical Directors Committee (providing input to the EMS
Medical Director) and is a significant change in direction from the SOP it will
replace. The basic premise is to
formulate a SOP that works for Alaska, appropriately liberalizing some procedures
and medications for given provider levels but with the requirement that
additional training and oversight will be required. A final version of the SOP
is forthcoming and will be similar to the posted version. Please keep in mind that expanded scope will
still be an option but we hope that this will safely provide an easier pathway
to meeting the community’s needs.
Further important EMS updates will be addressed throughout
the newsletter. I hope that you find the
information useful and informative as we embark on this journey of moving
Alaska EMS Forward Together.
Thank you for all that you do.
Mike
Michael Levy M.D. FAEMS, FACEP, FACP State EMS Medical Director Rural and Community Health Systems
Drug Shortages
There are rolling shortages of drugs and fluids in Alaska
and nationwide. The persistence of this new normal is actually reflected in the proposed SOP
revision where we now refer to a class of drug, in some instances as opposed to a specific drug
when describing allowed medications. For
example “benzodiazepine” for seizure as opposed to “lorazepam” or “midazolam”
since on a week by week time frame we do not know what will be available. There
is gaining momentum at a national level to address this situation. Although we abide by
the manufacturers’ expiration dates, a quick web search will confirm your
suspicion that many drugs’ potency far exceeds their “shelf life”. The only current pathways to extend the
usage is via the government’s Shelf Life Extension Program (typically for
cached drugs for WMD) or from a manufacturer-directed extension.
For the status of current drug shortages please visit the National
Association of State EMS Officials website and follow the ASHP link under the Resources section.
Naloxone
Read
about Naloxone guideline development and dissemination here.
Save the date for the following educational opportunities:
Hale Borealis Forum
October 23-25, Dena'ina Center, Anchorage
The Hale Borealis Forum is a three day conference that brings together
healthcare, EMS, emergency management, law enforcement, and other
critical stakeholders, with a focus on health and medical emergency
preparedness, response, and recovery. The multi-agency, collaborative
approach to health preparedness is reflected in this year’s theme:
“Strengthening Whole Community Partnerships to Improve Healthcare
Resiliency.”
For more information visit www.haleborealis.com.
NAEMSP Medical Directors Operations Course
October 26th, Frontier Building, Suite 100, Anchorage
This course will be tailored to address Alaska EMS practice
and have faculty on behalf of the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP). This
course has been well-received nationwide and internationally. More details to follow.
Southern Region EMS Symposium
November 7-10, Egan Center, Anchorage
Pediatric Clinical & EMS Tracks, Resuscitation Academy, Lessons from Libya: Care Under Fire, Burn Care: Long term EMS & Clinical, and more.
For more information visit Southern Region EMS Council online.
Resuscitation Academy
An intense one
day RA will be offered during the Southern Region EMS Symposium with
faculty from the Seattle RA associated with the
Global Resuscitation Alliance.
Attendance will be limited so be on the look out for Southern Region's registration announcement coming soon!
The National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians (NAEMT) Emergency Pediatric Care (EPC) course was introduced to providers in early 2015 as a train the trainer course.
Thus far, the EPC train the trainer course has established approximately 20 EPC instructors from three EMS regions across Alaska. Providers should be seeing increased pediatric opportunities within their community as this project continues to roll out.
If you or your agency is interested in holding an EPC course please contact the EMSC Program for more information.
Deadlines
December 31- Recertification for EMS Service and EMT 1
March 31 - Recertification for EMT 2, EMT 3, and Instructor
Login to your account here to recertify.
Alaska EMS Certification Portal
Please visit the Certification Portal, Alaska’s online EMS certification system. The Certification Portal allows you to submit applications, check the status of your application, manage your certification, search for EMS personnel and search for upcoming courses.
AURORA Elite
The Alaska Uniform Response Online Reporting Access (AURORA) Elite, is the new state online reporting system for EMS providers. The State EMS Office uses this data for quality improvement initiatives throughout the state and uploads this data into the National EMS Information System (NEMSIS).
AURORA 2.0 users are currently transitioning to the AURORA Elite platform which yields NEMSIS 3.0 compliant data. If your agency is still using 2.0 please contact your regional data manager.
Cardiac Arrest Registry to Enhance Survival (CARES)
The State EMS Office is excited to announce that we will begin reporting to CARES.
Out of hospital cardiac arrest is one of largest causes of
death in adults in Alaska. Nationwide
there is huge variability in the survival, ranging from less than 5% to over
20% for all rhythms and when the arrest is witnessed and the initial rhythm was
ventricular fibrillation, optimized systems have shown year after year 60% survival
with good neurological outcomes whereas lesser systems still have only single
digit success. Good systems have one
thing in common: they measure their systems and as they measure their systems
they improve because they use the metrics to address shortcomings. In other words, you can only manage what you
measure.
CARES (www.mycares.net) is currently one of
the few nationwide standard entry platforms to detail the events associated
with cardiac arrest starting with EMS dispatch information, followed by field
information and ultimately hospital care and patient’s neurological status at
discharge. The EMS information will soon
be able to be directly uploaded to the CARES network via Aurora Elite.
|
