CoAEMSP News | November 2024

Death in Custody Webinar Recap

How one Paramedic Program incorporated the webinar into its lesson of the day.

I wanted to take a minute to thank you for offering the recent webinar, "Death in Custody." Our paramedic faculty, students, and I watched the webinar live. The presentation was truly compelling. The critical discussion of proper restraint had all of us looking deep inside ourselves as we considered the immense legal and ethical responsibilities required of all paramedics. It was a powerful reminder to "First, do no harm." Furthermore, the rich and passionate class discussion that followed the webinar revealed learning deep into the affective domain. On behalf of all of us, thank you for offering this valuable experience on our path of always improving. 

- Gordy Kokx, Department Chair / Faculty Inver Hills Community College, Inver Grove Heights, Minn.

If you missed the October webinar – Death in Custody – fear not. A recording of the presentation is available, and it is well worth your time.

Eric Jaeger, JD, NRP, is an emergency medical educator, paramedic, and attorney. He suggests that “the approach to physical restraint and chemical sedation must be radically revamped to enhance safety. The existing approach carries an unacceptable risk of death, placing patients at risk and exposing first responders to liability. Changing the approach requires rewriting restraint protocols and overhauling training.” Eric provides a deep dive review of the circumstances surrounding the 2019 death of Elijah McClain. He offers valuable resources for EMS professionals, including the “Top 10 Principles” of physical restraint, chemical sedation, and pathophysiology of death in custody.

Among the many insights Eric provided in the webinar, two stand out: 

• At the moment EMS professionals arrive at a police scene, it is our job to view the individual in custody as a patient, not a suspect.
• Chemical sedation should be a deliberate procedure, not simply a med administration. EMS professionals should never administer chemical sedation at the direction of law enforcement – it is a medical decision made by the provider based on clinical judgment alone.

This is an important conversation for the EMS profession and links directly to Standard II.A. and the goal to prepare EMS personnel who are competent in the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective learning domains to enter the profession. CoAEMSP is grateful to Eric Jaeger for sharing his insights with paramedic educators.

Webinar: Thursday, November 21 @ 1PM Central

Does Your Program Outsource Resources?

Many program sponsors work cooperatively with community partners to pool resources for their Paramedic or AEMT courses. This can include instructional services, space, equipment, or supplies. If this applies to your program, what is your agreement with the community partner? Do you have a written agreement? Who is responsible for the services? What are the lines of authority and reporting? What happens if the partner no longer contributes? Is a satellite location considered outsourcing? Do you know what the CoAEMSP policy is for outsourced services? This session will discuss what is included in outsourced resources and examples of partnerships and services that programs may be engaged in.

Sample EMS Program Files Document Now Available

Ever wonder what files or records your program should keep for the students, the cohort, and the faculty? We have made it easier for you. You can find a sample document on the CoAEMSP website that you can use as a guide. The tables suggest what documents to keep in each area, providing you with a convenient resource.

CAAHEP Standard V.D. for Student Records states:

Grades and credits for courses must be recorded on the student transcript and permanently maintained by the program sponsor in an accessible and secure location. Students and graduates must be given direction on how to access their records. Records must be maintained for student admission, advisement, and counseling while the student is enrolled in the program.

The CoAEMSP Interpretations of the CAAHEP Standards language is:

The program has the responsibility to ensure that student records are maintained in accordance with state records retention laws, including the items listed in this Standard. Student academic transcripts that document student attendance dates, credits earned, if any, and grades shall be permanently maintained.

Neither CAAHEP nor CoAEMSP is prescriptive regarding the various specific documents or files, but programs should have a plan for document retention. This flexibility allows you to tailor your document retention to your program's unique needs. Files may be electronic or paper and must always be secure. There should be a backup system for electronic files in case of system failure.

An extremely important and frequently overlooked issue is the survival of all program materials from one program director or faculty member to the next. Programs must have an electronic file storage platform accessible to all program personnel, and no one loses access if an individual is no longer associated with the program. This can be a shared drive or cloud storage system and cannot be an individual’s desktop, individual hard drive, individual folder on the system, removable storage device, or other permutation. Sensitive materials, such as personnel files, can be password-protected as needed. Loss of program data is a common problem, and building a system that is accessible and consistent is vital.

View sample here > Program Files - sample.

How accreditation of paramedic education programs is helping to address the workforce crisis

What CoAEMSP has learned about EMS student attrition and retention

No matter where you look, it’s hard to escape the fact that our nation is in a health care workforce crisis. This is particularly true for EMS professionals. First responders have always been vulnerable to workforce pressures for a host of reasons, and those were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, a number of recent studies provide hope that small changes could yield big results, particularly in the field of paramedic education.

Read the article here.

Pre-conference Workshop at NAEMSP

Empowering Leadership: Building Equity and Excellence into EMS Systems

January 8, 8 AM-5 PM

NAEMSP | San Diego, CA

NAEMSP would like to invite you personally, and any persons you feel would be interested in attending their pre-conference workshop Empowering Leadership: Building Equity and Excellence into EMS Systems at the NAEMSP conference in San Diego, CA, on January 8, 2025, from 8 AM-5 PM sponsored by Prodigy and FirstWatch.

The workshop consists of these objectives: 

• Understanding racism, implicit bias, and microaggressions within the EMS workforce and patient care 
• Define systemic racism and its impact within United States healthcare as a whole and prehospital care 
• Understand social determinants of health and its impact on patient outcomes 
• Understand how health inequities are formed 
• Learn about health inequities and disparities that impact marginalized groups in society and EMS 
• Learn about EMS workforce demographics 
• Learn benefits of diversity and how to foster it in the EMS workspace 
• Understand and model allyship and interrupter techniques (UPSTANDER Training) to combat bias/ microaggressions and work toward cultural humility 
• Learn strategies for recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce and community engagement 
• Learn solutions to achieving equitable prehospital care and developing quality improvement tools to incorporate into analyzing inequities in care

Recent research has demonstrated a lack of EMS workforce diversity and the presence of health disparities in prehospital care. This course is open to all EMS educators, EMS clinicians, and EMS medical directors. It aims to strategize solutions to combat bias and health disparities in EMS, helping improve patient health outcomes and foster a true environment of diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging. This course provides a comprehensive perspective on how to combat bias, microaggressions, and racism to change EMS culture and improve patient care. Attendees will participate in didactics, group activities, case discussions, Upstander/allyship practice, and open discussion to identify solutions and how to perform QI with an equity lens. This leadership course is different from most since we strive to identify issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and provide take-home strategies to overcome them. 

Please register at https://naemsp.org/registration-pricing/ 

Looking forward to having you join us on January 8, 2024! 

Best Regards, 

Dr. Ricky Tripp & Dr. Ameera Haamid

Milestones | Congratulations!

Alyssa Cahoon, EdD, MPH, RN, NRP, Program Director of the Paramedic program sponsored by Milwaukee Area Technical College, Milwaukee, Wisc., earned the Doctor of Education degree conferred on May 9, 2024, by Concordia University.