Announcing the NAEMSQC

For information on joining the NAEMSQC, e-mail Joe Hayes at jhayes763@yahoo.com, or call 215/852-5755.

Now, a decade and a half into the 21st century it is time for quality coordinators, medical directors and other interested parties to come together in an organization dedicated to the advancement of quality patient care in EMS. An organization for those committed to continuous quality improvement similar to what EMS instructors have with the National Association of EMS Educators (NAEMSE), EMS leaders have with the National EMS Management Association (NEMSMA) and EMS medical directors have with the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP). And to this end, the non-profit National Association of EMS Quality Coordinators (NAEMSQC) was officially founded as a 501(c) (3) in April of this year.

Before I go any farther, I’d like to thank my fellow founders of the NAEMSQC; Chris Sole, Kim Dicken, Dr. David Jaslow and especially Denny Kinkead without whom the founding of the NAEMSQC would not have been possible.

For much of the first 50 years of EMS, we have not always communicated or worked so well together. As a result, in many instances it was left up to each and every individual agency to figure out the solution to each and every problem on their own. Needless to say the cost of this has been a huge amount of duplication of effort, it wasted time and ultimately left us with a patch work of varying degrees of quality of patient care from state to state, region to region and even town to town. One of the greatest goals of the NAEMSQC will be to break out of our parochialism and promote national standards for quality improvement programs in EMS.

By anyone’s definition, quality improvement is the keystone of EMS. Providing competent, effective and safe patient care is a universal expectation and the very reason EMS exists. Any agency not fully dedicated to the continuous improvement of patient care does not deserve to be in this business. At the center of this effort is the quality coordinator which has forever been the most glamorless, thankless job in all of EMS. A position frequently misused for convalescence of injuries, punishment and in some instances a hideaway for the substandard and most dangerous of providers. But, many agencies have succeeded in developing progressive quality improvement programs. Some insightful individuals who found themselves in this fateful position, recognized the importance and extraordinary opportunity to make a difference on a scale much greater than just one call at a time and seized the opportunity. These are the quality coordinators, medical directors and others we are seeking to join us and help us promote a culture of enhanced quality patient care throughout all of EMS.     

If you are a quality coordinator, a medical director, an EMS officer or anyone else who has achieved success in quality improvement or discovered a better or more imaginative way of improving patient care, please consider sharing your success and brilliance with the rest of EMS.

Quality improvement, quality assurance, performance improvement or whatever else it may be called at your agency is the core business of EMS. But, as previously mentioned it has not always been afforded the importance, respect or support it deserves. In the humble opinion of this author, the time has come for quality improvement to break out of its lethargic slumber and assume its proper role as the integral part of EMS commensurate with the importance it deserves.

Conferences, networking and collaboration of ideas are excellent ways of stacking the deck in favor of our success. Utilizing this network will help raise standards within our agencies, increase the perception of professionalism of the quality coordinator and achieve success in improving patient care much quicker and more dramatically than trying to reinvent the wheel a thousand times over. For those of you who are visionary enough to recognize the timeliness and importance of this effort and are willing to seize the opportunity, you will continue to serve your agency and patients well, share what your knowledge with the rest of EMS and hopefully enhance your own career in the process.

None of the five of us who worked to found the NAEMSQC are looking to be presidents-for-life and if the NAEMSQC only includes us five even with a hundred followers but only our ideas, it will fail. Having founded the NAEMSQC we are now at a critical juncture. If we are to succeed in our mission of positively affecting patient care on a national level while gaining respect for and possibly even making the quality coordinator a career enhancing position, we must bring the best and brightest in EMS to the table because none of us are as smart as all of us.