News

CAAHEP Accreditation for Texas Fire Department`s In-house Paramedic Program

Brian Bethel

04/12/2017

April 12—Accreditation recently received by the Abilene Fire Department elevates its paramedic program to national standards, meaning the best possible training available for new firefighters, Chief Larry Bell said.

"We have been progressing through the years elevating our EMS service," Bell said. "This was a natural progression of that."

New firefighters are required to acquire paramedic certification within two years of being hired, he said.

It's reflective of the department's day-to-day work, he said, with about 67 percent of its calls being medical-related.

"So we have become an EMS department that responds to fires, rather than a fire department that responds to EMS runs," he said. "We still fight fires, we still do hazmat, but EMS is our primary response."

There are several levels of EMT certification, he said, including a basic level that works primarily as support and advanced, which allows more involvement, such as starting IVs or performing intubations.

"A paramedic is all of those things, plus some pharmacology," bringing the "highest level possible of EMS out into the field," Bell said.

"That's why it's important for the community and our department," he said. "It is providing the highest level of care."

City Manager Robert Hanna said the accreditation, which is from the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs, is a "testament to the quality and caliber of our fire officers and their instructors that Abilene has an in-house accredited paramedic program."

"It raises the standards of care we can provide the citizens of Abilene and it helps to underscore that we have a world-class fire department," he said.

CAAHEP reviews and accredits more than 2,000 educational programs in 28 health science occupations.

The department's program is 14 months long, requiring classroom work, hospital clinical hours and ambulance ride-alongs.

It was around five years ago, Bell said, when the department learned that if it wanted to "teach a paramedic-level course, which is a university-level course, we would have to become accredited."

Every aspect of the AFD's paramedic training, from equipment and facilities available to curriculum to passing rates to the program's history, was considered. A site visit also was included in the evaluation.

Several final evaluations could have been given, he said, including outright denial and a sort of provisional acceptance. But the AFD's program received accreditation with no hiccups, a "very significant thing," Bell said.

"The last two classes were the ones most closely evaluated," he said. "But it means that the ones we have taught are at that certification level. And our future students know that they have that nationally recognized accreditation."

The fruits of that labor were proved with the most recent group of students. Out of 11 students, the last testing about two weeks ago, all passed a required national-level test on the first try.

"The Texas average on passing that test on the first attempt is 66 percent," Bell said. "The last class before this one, we had only one student that didn't get it on the first attempt, and they passed on their second attempt. That speaks very highly of the training staff."

Currently, there are six training staff members, Bell said, and 88 out of 162 firefighters presently employed are paramedics. Firefighters are considered on probation until they get their paramedic certification, and if they don't get it within two years of hire, "we don't keep them," he said.

A future new training facility, funded by a 2015 bond election, will improve the program's fortunes even more, Bell said. With its current cramped setup, the department had to bring in portable buildings to accommodate classes and breakout sessions.

"We were cramped before we went to the paramedic level," he said. The new facility will provide a combination of space and better technology that will help paramedic and fire training, featuring a large, primary classroom, a secondary classroom, office space for staff, and availability for breakout classes.

Every piece of the department's equipment, Bell said, has "at least one, and most of the time, two paramedics on it."

The department's documentation is now managed through electronic field reporting, he noted. This means that trained individuals can capture everything taking place electronically, then transfer that information through the EMS system to ambulance provider MetroCare and eventually to local hospitals.

"It's a huge benefit, but that starts with that medic," Bell said. "Everything that takes place, he's making decisions, directing the scene. And we have had good outcome after good outcome in those situations. And we work well with MetroCare—they have at least one medic on their piece of equipment that responds, as well."

That means "citizens are well-treated when there's a medical response like that out there," he said.

New recruits who go through the program with the Fire Department can get college credit for their time investment, Bell said.

"We have an articulation agreement with Cisco College that allows them to receive college credit," he said. "And since we're accredited, they can certainly get that."