| Download: EMS Management and Leadership Development in America |
The National EMS Management Association (NEMSMA) released a white paper at EMS EXPO in October that calls on the EMS industry to make significant improvements in the way in which it defines, educates, trains and credentials those individuals responsible for the management of EMS agencies.
“The time has come for EMS to step up to the plate and take EMS leadership and management seriously,” said NEMSMA Board member Skip Kirkwood, lead author of the white paper. “For too long, we’ve muddled along with folks coming up the ranks to leadership positions without the requisite knowledge, skills, and experience. EMS has become much more complex and challenging in recent years, and we can no longer take a haphazard approach to EMS management and leadership. We need a more formalized system to ensure that managers are competent and that we have a strong cadre of professionals leading us into the future.”
The white paper, titled “Emergency Medical Services Management and Leadership Development in America: An Agenda for the Future,” calls for all national groups representing EMS to come together to agree on standardized nomenclature to define the various levels of EMS management and assign competencies to each of those levels. This effort would be called the National EMS Officers Levels and Competencies Project.
NEMSMA also calls for the creation of the National EMS Officers Training and Education Project to develop model course offerings and model curricula for EMS management that would guide training programs and academic institutions in supporting consensus-identified competencies. Part of that project also would bring together all the major training programs and educational institutions engaged in EMS officer development to engage in future development of EMS management curricula and create a vision and plan for a national EMS officer development and resource center.
Finally, NEMSMA seeks the creation of a national organization to award credentials to EMS managers who are able to demonstrate the competencies defined by the National EMS Officers Levels and Competencies Project.
A complete copy of “Emergency Medical Services Management and Leadership Development in America: An Agenda for the Future” can be downloaded at here.
Visit the National EMS Management Association page.