Happy New Year and Happy Birthday
Happy New Year! There’s no doubt 2016 was a difficult year for many Americans. Here’s hoping 2017 is a good one for us all.
It’s going to be a good year for EMS World because among other things, we’re turning 45. That’s kind of hard to believe. When we began in 1972, it was just six years after publication of the seminal white paper Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society and a full year before the EMS Systems Act of 1973 formally kick-started the development of prehospital care networks across the U.S.
We’ve watched and chronicled as our industry has grown into maturity and steadily advanced its capabilities, care levels, technologies and professionalism. The care we today provide victims of life-imperiling, time-sensitive threats like cardiac arrest, stroke, trauma and more would astonish our forebears. So would the care we tirelessly offer the less-acute, more-numerous thousands who call 9-1-1 each day—some warranted and some not—for reasons short of mortal menace. So too would the concepts of mobile integrated healthcare and taking follow-up and preventive care to those vulnerable and at risk.
It’s a much different world than 1972, and it’s with some pride that we enter 2017 as the longest-standing, most widely read and most influential trade publication and website for emergency medical services providers. Thanks for allowing us to serve you. We’ll be commemorating it all with a special anniversary edition later this year, as well as digging up key articles, interviews and other content from our near-half-century-deep vault of archives for republication on EMSWorld.com.
And if you’d like to start planning early, EMS World Expo 2017 will be held October 16–20 in Las Vegas. For information see www.emsworldexpo.com.
Our work could not happen without your work, so again, thanks for your tenacious efforts to keep our communities safer, healthier and happier for the citizens you serve. We’re thrilled to be a part of it with you.
