Is EMS truly a part of your healthcare system? Is there a flow of data from 911 calls through hospital discharge that enables you to maximize resource utilization and improve patient outcomes systematically? San Diego has spent the past decade creating and improving electronic bidirectional EMS-hospital communications. This data flow impacts the care of patients, imparts the importance of EMS care to hospital providers, provides needed outcomes to our EMS agencies and has been a critical help with our high utilizer patients. However, it has required more than just an IT data exchange—it has required strong collaboration between EMS and hospital leadership.

This is about changing the future. Come learn about how one community navigated the path to success, and the critical next steps needed by both EMS and hospital leadership. Joelle Donofrio-Ödmann, DO, serves as an associate professor at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and the deputy chief medical officer for the City of San Diego and the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.