Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen?

A recent discussion over at Jems.com was started in which the original poster (OP) threw out the question about what drives EMS staffing, Cardiac Arrests (ALS) or Medical Care, and what the mix of EMT's to EMT-P's should be utilized. (http://connect.jems.com/forum/topics/cardiac-arrest-or-medical-care)

An interesting discussion ensued with many people voicing their opinions and experiences. After reading through a majority of the posts I could pick up on a couple of themes which seem to predominate...

One of the strongest themes is that if we are basing our EMS staffing on ALS calls, then increased EMT-P's are needed, sometimes even dual EMT-P crews. This is further facilitated by the growing use of and demand for EMT-P qualified "first responders" as part of the fire service and a responding engine or rescue company. Unfortunately, with this increased use of EMT-P's by the fire service, it has mandated or "encouarged" many who would not otherwise consider going to EMT-P school to go to get the increased education and medical credentials. Many men/women entering the fire service are now being called up on to change/alter their career paths to incorporate this EMS training to meet the demands/desires of their municipality public safety administrators.

So the thought process goes that we need more medics (EMT-P's) to be able to effectively cover more ALS calls, more readily.

While this sounds good in principle the numbers don't pan out as well.

Having more medics on duty means each medic gets less calls. Huh you say? What's that got to do with the price of diesel?

Of those ALS calls that require medic level skills (IE: non-BLS), each medic will have less opportunities to "play" and get the ongoing job/real-life experiences which add to and build upon their experience repertoire'. When one considers critical ALS skills, like, er, uh, lets say "INTUBATION", you see where lack of "practice" can lead to lack of success.

Ultimately this leads to an EMS/Fire Service with lots of medics who each SELDOM get intubations on live (er, uh, "barely alive") patients. So when it REALLY counts, they lack the field experience and have to base their skill set on those manikins and OR rotations for recalling the psychomotor skills.

Add to this the current recommendations by the American Heart Association and the EMS/Pre-hospital system as a whole; to forego intubation if BVM will suffice. So now you have even less opportunities for intubations amongst and increasing number of medics.

It's not uncommon to read about medics in some systems these days who are lucky to get even just ONE opportunity to intubate annually - that's OPPORTUNITY, we're not even talking successful intubation yet!

So now to explore this we respectfully have to look at the other side of the equation or assume the other possible outcome - to DECREASE the number of employed medics and increase the number of EMT's (basics) out there.

Well, up front the numbers would support this. Overall, a majority of all EMS calls are BLS in nature and don't require ALS skills at all. So it would make sense to have an EMS system that is heavy on the EMT-B side of providers. This would, however, beg the question: what to do with all those medics?

Some proponents have suggested staffing with medics where they are needed, or centralized or via the QRV scheme.

Looking at demographics, transport times, distances, a service could strategically look at where to maximally staff their medics. Maybe they would put them in areas that were longer transport, higher acuity traumas or more rural where experienced providers were limited in availability.

One could conceive of even putting more EMT-B's in some of the urban areas where even with a "trauma" a load-n-go might only be 2-3 minutes from a trauma center.

Some systems have already incorporated the medic QRV concept. Contemporary implementations of this usually have a shift supervisor (medic) readily available to respond to a wider area quickly to "back up" the EMT-B's on scene and bring that higher level ALS skill set when necessary. Most systems that are using this however are using their supervisors; the new evolution of this position would consider merely a street level paramedic who is unencumbered to respond as needed to scene calls and not tie up a supervisor. If no ALS needed on a particular scene, then the medic could get back "in service" and "available" for the next one.

These are only limited solutions to bigger system problems. In an era of increasing cost containment, decreasing reimbursements, increased operating costs and increased litigation risks the overall principle is COST. The costs of labor, training and effective resource utilization all add up. New and novel ways to staff and provide effective community level EMS services continues to be a challenge even for the most experienced administrations.

It is interesting however to note that we spend way too much time focusing on "the big one" when the "big one" occurs a whole less often than previously considered. But....would anyone want to tell THEIR community that they are cutting back on Advanced Life Support (IE: Paramedic) level care???? Political suicide for sure!






~"KMG-365, Clear..."