Program

Community paramedicine promises to be a game changer for EMS. Go from the theoretical to the practical and get real-world examples from those doing the work in both urban and rural settings. Part 2, the afternoon of Aug. 5, focuses on crafting a budget and developing a business case for a program. Supported in part by the Medtronic Foundation.

This session, the first in a two-part series, profiles community paramedic (CP) foundational concepts and outlines the real-world experiences of multiple successful programs and diverse approaches, including international examples. If you’re thinking about implementing a CP program, whether urban or rural, you’ll get practical advice about how to avoid pitfalls and ensure success, from both clinical and operational perspectives.

Topics covered include:

• Key success elements of multiple CP programs and “deep holes” to avoid
• How CP enhances providing the “right care at the right place” (e.g., patient navigation programs including 911 nurse triage and alternate-care pathways, EMS “loyalty programs” and member management)
• Multiple CP models including extended-care paramedics programs (nursing home and assisted living center services); VISIT (Vitals, Interview, Safety, Inspection and Treatment) program concepts
• How the concepts of mobile integrated health care integrate clinically with CP

You’ll learn how to determine the right mix of services and interventions, master practical aspects of medical oversight and avoid resistance from other health-care professionals.

The presenters are recognized pioneers and experts in this emerging area. Matt Zavadsky is director of public affairs at MedStar Mobile Healthcare in Fort Worth, Texas, and Jeff Beeson, D.O., is medical director there. From Emergency Medical Care Inc. in Nova Scotia are Paula Poirier, chief operating officer; and Jeff Fraser, director of ambulance operations and community paramedicine. Michael Wilcox, M.D., a family physician and medical director for 85 Minnesota EMS agencies, is medical director of the community paramedic program at Hennepin Technical College in Brooklyn Park, Minn.

Separate fee required.

Sponsored by Medtronic Foundation

Only 10 percent of agencies are doing quality improvement correctly, says QI guru Mike Taigman. Learn what you’re doing wrong — and how to fix it — from the best in the field.

Quality can mean different things to different people, depending on what they value. But some things — resuscitation, respiratory management and pain management, to name a few — matter (or should) to everyone. This practical seminar helps you move beyond the typical QI focus on skills performance and protocol compliance to make measurable improvements to the things that matter most.

You’ll learn:

• Multiple models for improvement
• Impacts, implications and outcomes of leading quality initiatives
• Smart ways to identify, plan and execute improvement projects
• How to link strategic and tactical quality decisions to deliver tangible results
• Meaningful ways to engage internal and external customers to demonstrate value

 
The presenters have expert credentials and unique perspectives. Scott Bourn, Ph.D., is vice president of clinical affairs at American Medical Response. Mike Taigman, general manager at American Medical Response’s Gold Coast Ambulance in Ventura County, Calif., is widely known for his passion for measurably improving patient care. David Harrawood, president of the Baldrige Consulting Group, previously served as the executive director of emergency services for Sarasota County, Fla.

Separate fee required.

Technology advances constantly, but is it all progress? Selecting and implementing appropriate technology, from ePCR and billing solutions to CAD, to data mining and resource deployment, can be frustrating and confusing — not to mention costly. Learn how to navigate these tricky waters.

Has technology delivered on promises made in recent years? Have you gotten value from your most recent technology acquisition? Are you informed, confused or downright frustrated when it comes to knowing how to make sure your next investment will create value for your system?

This session is designed to provide down-to-earth and up-to-date information on key aspects of emerging technologies including:

• Computer aided dispatch & CAD-2-CAD
• Electronic patient care records (ePCRs)
• Infrastructure and virtualization changes
• Public safety communications and bandwidth changes
• Integrated informatics
• Health Information Technology Systems (HITs)

 
You’ll learn:

• What technology can and can’t do
• What the science is telling us about technology’s real ability to save time and effort
• When is the time to change technologies
• How to use dashboards to optimize systems
• Whether you should own technology infrastructure or move to the Cloud

 
The presenters for this session are experts who know how to explain complex technical topics in plain English. Guillermo Fuentes is a partner at Fitch & Associates and former chief administrative officer of the Niagara Ontario (Canada) Regional Police Agency. Frank Gresh is director of information technology at EMSA, the EMS Authority in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla. Todd Stout is president of FirstWatch and the recipient of a JEMS “EMS 10” Innovator Award.

Separate fee required.

Part 1 of this series focused on clinical lessons learned from real-world case studies. Part 2 will help you conduct a self-assessment and build a plan for your community that includes a value proposition and budget. You’ll hear how the concepts of mobile integrated health care fit into the business model. Supported in part by the Medtronic Foundation.

Most agree community paramedicine is a patient-centric idea — but is it right for your system from a business perspective? There are multiple operational and fiscal implications to consider when implementing a CP program. The faculty will help you conduct a self-assessment, then build a plan for your community, with guidelines for implementation. You’ll take home a budget template to customize for your own community and program.

You’ll learn:

• The key roles medical directors and partner physicians play in program development
• Strategies for partnering with health-care stakeholders to determine unmet needs
• Methods for tracking utilization and reporting outcomes
• Value-based decision-making processes used by stakeholders who will or will not consider funding your programs
• How the concepts of mobile integrated health care incorporate community paramedicine, from a business perspective

The presenters have unique experience and insight into the business side of community paramedicine. Matt Zavadsky is director of public affairs at MedStar Mobile Healthcare in Fort Worth, Texas. Dan Swayze, DrPH, is vice president of the Center for Emergency Medicine in Pittsburgh. Rick Keller is a founding partner at Fitch & Associates.

Separate fee required.

Sponsored by Medtronic Foundation

“Don’t do anything you wouldn’t want to read in the newspaper the next day” is an adage about ethics that leaders seem to break with increasing frequency. This thoughtful, compelling session explores ethical leadership from the context of legal responsibilities as well as what it really means to “do the right thing.”

During the past year we’ve observed the fall from grace of CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, cycling icon Lance Armstrong and numerous business leaders. While their situations differed, each breeched the ethical standards demanded by their professions. Ethics and doing the right thing are important.

Even when EMS leaders try to do the right thing, it doesn’t always yield the desired outcome. Simply stated, EMS organizations, their leaders and board members are being sued with increasing frequency. A number of factors have fueled this trend, including a surge of employment liability cases, expanded government resources and tools focusing on fraud and abuse, reinvigorated antitrust enforcement, and increased scrutiny of ambulance operations. With litigation on the rise, taking steps to mitigate the risks are more important now than ever.

Ethical decision-making requires critical thinking skills. In this session, you’ll learn:

• How to develop an action plan to deal with issues as they arise
• Approaches for recognizing and managing the six most critical risk areas
• The best way to report breaches of compliance policies and respond to government inquiries
• The importance of carrying out internal investigations of suspected violations swiftly and promptly
• The implications of fiduciary duty and conflict of interest for board members and leaders
• Strategies to reduce the risk of litigation in complex circumstances

 
The session leaders approach this topic from a practical as well as an academic point of view. Matthew Streger, a former paramedic who served as deputy commissioner of Cleveland EMS, is a health-care attorney practicing in the New York City area. Michael Ward led the EMS management degree program for a major university and now serves as a senior consultant in the Fire Service Practice at Fitch & Associates. 

Separate fee required.

Fire services nationwide are struggling. Service models no longer reflect today’s economic and political realities. Reinvention of the fire service as community risk reduction experts has been the talk. But how do we walk that talk?

Is accreditation, ISO or NFPA 1710 relevant for the future of the fire service? What really matters? What will the future look like? Will it be constrained by the past or developed through innovative technologies, processes and leadership?

This is a must-attend interactive session that will reframe your thinking, challenge assumptions and provide implementable options for your service.

You will learn how to:

• Evaluate community risk reduction opportunities
• Reconcile demand data, staffing/resources and standards of cover
• Evaluate emerging technologies that will change response patterns
• Conduct a current/future capabilities gap analysis for your department
• Develop innovation strategies and grow people in a structured labor environment
• Use metrics and measurement that matter to council members and commissioners
• Identify “low-hanging fruit” for immediate implementation

 
Retired Chief Jim Broman served as a fire chief in Lacey, Wash., Englewood, Colo., and Wheaton, Ill. He is past president of the Institution of Fire Engineers (U.S.A. branch). He is a member of the IAFC’s Vision 20/20 steering committee and chaired the IAFC’s professional development committee. He serves as a senior consultant in the Fitch & Associates Fire Service Practice.

Deputy Chief Norris W. Croom oversees operations for the Castle Rock (Colo.) Fire and Rescue Department and was recognized with the Pinnacle Emerging Leader Award in 2012. He serves as the EMS Representative for the Commission on Professional Credentialing, Center for Public Safety Excellence.

Separate fee required.

Learn practical ideas for improving your agency’s operations. This seminar starts with 50 tactics (such as improved deployment, data surveillance, key performance indicators, response time performance monitors and automated clinical feedback) and, with the help of participants, quickly narrows it down to the 10 most relevant.

EMS systems nationwide continue to search for ways to demonstrate value for their communities. Whether serving urban or rural communities, large or small, EMS leaders need to know tactics for improvement that can be readily implemented.

In this fast-paced, highly interactive session, you’ll learn the essentials of the 50 performance improvement tactics forward-thinking leaders must know to survive and thrive, including topics such as deployment, scheduling options, using clinical and operational data, the “pit crew approach” for critical calls, key performance indicators, improving call throughput, fleet and maintenance factors, advanced logistics/restocking, measuring key intervals to improve performance and enhancing personnel performance. Session participants will then select the top 10 topics to be presented in depth.

Expert faculty members include: Todd Stout, president of FirstWatch, who has helped EMS organizations put their information to work to improve performance for more than 20 years; Scott Hadley, director of Sedgwick County (Kansas) EMS, who has successfully implemented innovative operations tactics in a third-service environment; and Steve Cotter, EMS director of Piedmont (S.C.) Medical Center, who is nationally recognized for using data in innovative ways to improve operations.

Separate fee required.

The concepts of “Just Culture” are increasingly considered critical to creating a safe organization, for patients and providers alike. After reviewing the underlying principles, this seminar provides a step-by-step implementation plan.

EMS is neither error- nor risk-free. You cannot guarantee outcomes for patients, but you can improve the odds significantly and reduce risk by using well-developed processes. Safety isn’t a revolutionary idea, but the Just Culture approach is. It’s really about creating a culture of shared accountability.

Robert Sumwalt, vice chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, is on record for promoting the simplicity, power and effectiveness of the Just Culture approach. He calls it “the foundation for any organizational safety effort to succeed.”

In this session, you’ll learn:

• The five skills necessary for better outcomes
• How to manage the three major types of behaviors that result in mistakes (human error, at-risk behavior and reckless behavior)
• Avoiding outcome and severity bias (and why “no harm, no foul” undermines your entire safety message)
• The role and mechanisms of an event investigation

 
Expert presenters include Paul LeSage, former paramedic and battalion chief in Tualatin Valley, Ore., and an advisor at Outcome Engenuity; and Michael Greene, a partner with Fitch & Associates. Both have extensive backgrounds in safety and EMS leadership.

Separate fee required.

The health-care reform debate has been settled and Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) will be growing in influence. Learn how your EMS system can be a player in this environment by shifting from a fee-for-service to a fee-for-value model. Supported in part by the Association of Critical Care Transport.

To be a player in tomorrow’s ACO-based health-care system, EMS systems have to be prepared to shift from fee-for-service to fee-for-value. Demonstrating EMS value with limited data is difficult but can be accomplished by managing metrics, paying attention to the requirements of regional health-care delivery systems, understanding the role of medical transport and preparing your system for the shift to accountable care.

You’ll learn:

• Revenue and expense drivers in the shift to value-based payment
• Operating metrics required under regionalized capitated care and ACO models
• How to manage metrics and achieve operational efficiencies to finance the transition
• Alignment strategies that will grow market share

 
Joseph Ryan, M.D., is the medical director for the Regional EMS Authority of Reno, Nev., a winner of the recent Center for Medicare and Medicaid Medicare Innovation Grant awards. William Gerard, M.D., is the director of emergency services at Palmetto Health System in Columbia, S.C. Thomas Judge is the executive director of LifeFlight of Maine.

Separate fee required.

Make no mistake: There is a critical shift occurring within the EMS workforce. Caregivers are working multiple jobs. Agencies are using more part-timers. And although EMS is talking at the national level about a strategy for a culture of safety, action at the local level is needed now on this and other workforce issues.

Expert presenters in this interactive seminar will work with you to re-examine fundamental perspectives about the EMS workforce. They’ll challenge standard practices prevalent throughout EMS and fire agencies and compare them to best practices in other industries. You’ll also learn about recent relevant research and firsthand EMS case studies, as well as exploring practical, actionable solutions. Topics include:

• Understanding the demographics of danger and how to assess risk — what is the magnitude of the problem for EMS and what is the cost to organizations, caregivers and families?
• Scheduling, work hours, circadian rhythms and their effect on care, safety and satisfaction for both patients and caregivers
• Tools for assessing readiness for duty
• The importance of fitness in the EMS environment — and what employers and employees alike must do to improve it
• How to manage multigenerational and blended workforces
• The viability of the “disposable employee” in the new EMS
• Essential issues to address via pre-employment screening, orientation and in-service training programs

Ernesto Rodriguez is director of the Austin-Travis County (Texas) EMS system. Skip Kirkwood, JD, is EMS chief of Wake County, N.C. Greg Friese is director of education for CentreLearn Solutions, LLC.

Separate fee required.

Sponsored by CentreLearn