EMS World

JUN 2015

EMS World Magazine is the most authoritative source in the world for clinical and educational material designed to improve the delivery of prehospital emergency medical care.

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CONTINUING EDUCATION can be produced by survey of what EMS pro- viders feel they need; review of EMS call data; review of quality improvement data; review of patient outcomes; and review of population demographics. Needs assessments can also be carried out on an individual level. In these cases, the criteria listed above are reviewed and applied to an individual EMS provider and a custom-tailored CE program is identi- fied, defined and initiated. This article is taken from CECBEMS' Best Practices in Continuing Education document available for download at http://cecbems.org. With more than 30 years as a paramedic and an extensive background in EMS education, Jay Scott brings an abun- dance of experience to his new position as executive director of the Continuing Education Coordinating Board for EMS. He also brings familiarity, having chaired CECBEMS' board of directors. Scott, BS, NREMT-P, took office in November. It's a good fit at a dynamic time for continuing education, with advancing technology rapidly chang- ing the face of how personnel get their hours. On the occasion of the release of the CECBEMS Best Practices Model Document for CE providers (published here), EMS World spoke to Scott about the evolution of EMS continuing educa- tion and his goals for the organization. How did your extensive background in EMS and education help prepare you for your role as executive director of CECBEMS? Well, I've always been passionate about the provision of EMS care, and even more passionate about making sure EMS provid- ers get what they need. That includes get- ting credit for the time they spend being trained. It's one thing to spend evenings, weekends and holidays away from your family for work, but it's something else to ask people to spend time away from their family members and friends to go do continuing education. So it's imperative for me that people get credit for the time they spend in training. And that training should exceptionally well done—well prepared, credible, relevant and exactly what EMS providers need. What is the role of CECBEMS in helping to achieve that and advance the EMS profession? When we formed back in 1992 under the guidance of Janet Head, who was then the president of NAEMT, her overriding goal was that we standardize continuing education so that every CE opportunity is a high-quality opportunity. We didn't want any more of, "Let's meet at the firehouse Friday night and talk about things that have been out of protocol for 10 years." We know EMS is a very dynamic profession and things change every day, and we have to stay on top of that. If the continuing education programs aren't up to snuff—if they don't stay ahead of the constant changes and this current evolution we're going through— then we're not going to prepare a very good EMS provider. If we want to have the best EMS system anywhere, we have to make sure the educational piece stays in pace. With the rapid changes in areas like technology, how should CE providers approach that? What should they be doing to prepare and move into the future? One of the reasons the board of direc- tors prepared the best practices model document was that we've seen a dramatic change in the technical ability of continu- ing education providers. Those changes have been absolutely amazing. We've seen a shift away from the traditional approach- es, like reading a magazine article and getting credit for it or reading an online presentation that's written-word-only, then taking a short post-test. People are gravi- tating more toward the higher-end stuff: the narrative videos, the cell phone appli- cations. Those are the things people want to see—it has to be interactive and flashy, but also relevant and current. Those are the trends now, and it's fas- cinating to watch. Back when I started, our first monitor was the Lifepak 5, and there weren't a whole lot of functions. It defibrillated, it read an EKG, and we could hook it up to a monitor and transmit an EKG, and that was pretty much it. But as technological changes happen, continu- ing education programs have to keep up with the times. When CE providers prepare to seek accreditation for their programs, are there areas they commonly overlook or that frequently delay the process? What trips people up? I think the things people tend to underesti- mate when they prepare their applications are 1) the participation of a system-wide or service-level medical director who's active, involved and has EMS experience, and 2) that there's an active program committee. We actually like to see some description of how the medical director interacts with the program committee and how the workings of that committee help set their educa- tional agenda. The needs assessment is built into that as well. Folks may not to do a good, careful, detailed needs assessment, and instead just say, "Well, let's just do the same stuff next year we did last year." That's not what EMS providers want. They want new; they want to see things that The High-Tech Future of Continuing Education Q&A; with CECBEMS Executive Director Jay Scott 30 JUNE 2015 | EMSWORLD.com Juan March and Jay Scott are featured speakers at EMS World Expo, Sept. 15–19 in Las Vegas. Visit EMSWorldExpo.com.

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