EMS Culture of Safety

Interesting article from "The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) and Sleep Research Society (SRS) on evidence-based guiding principles to help employers determine optimal work shift durations for their workplace. With a process that assesses risks, considers countermeasures, and institutes an informed approach to determine and evaluate shift durations, employers can make shift duration decisions that manage fatigue-related risks while also maintaining high productivity and safety." FREE read at

Guiding principles for determining work shift duration and addressing the effects of work shift duration on performance, safety, and health: guidance from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society Abstract. Risks associated with fatigue that accumulates during work shifts have historically been managed through working time arrangements that specify fixed

Wishing you and your loved ones a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving! Wishing you the gift of faith and the blessing of hope this thanksgiving day! We gather on this day to be thankful for what we have, for the family we love, the friends we cherish, and for the blessings that will come. Happy Thanksgiving! 🦃🍽🍁 be safe for all those working !

There is still a few days to submit your ideas or concepts for consideration for development as new EMS quality measures by the August 30, 2020 deadline. This is your opportunity to have a voice in quality measurement development and it is a very easy process and takes but a minute or two to complete. Your concept can be as simple as one of the assessments or treatments you perform everyday. An example for a quality measure for a pediatric respiratory assessment would be "Percentage of EMS responses originating from a 911 request for patients less than 18 years old with primary or secondary impression of respiratory distress who had a respiratory assessment."
How do you measure quality in your EMS system? You have a set of standardized quality measures that are used nationally. The National EMS Quality Alliance (NEMSQA) is currently conducting a Call for Concepts for quality measures. These concepts will be evaluated by a panel of EMS subject matter experts for possible development into a new quality measure.
A good quality measure is one that measures something essential for quality as opposed to just something that is nice to know. Some examples of areas to address through quality measures are: Clinical treatment, Call take and dispatch (EMD), Safety, and Response times.
Everyone is encourage to consider submitting one or more concepts as the more concepts that are received this only helped in the development of useful measures. You can submit your concepts at this link: https://www.nemsqa.org/measure-development-process/. The deadline for submission is August 30, 2020 but you are encouraged to submit your concepts soon.