SMEMSIC News

Platinum Educational Group and STAT EMS are sponsoring an EMS Instructor Coordinator Course beginning September 16, 2010.  For additional information and registration please contact EMS Educator Gary Denman 810.238.7672 ext.215 or email gdenman@statems.net or visit www.statems.net and click on Education.  Cost of course is $570.00.

The Emergency Medical Service Coordination Committee (EMSCC) has made a recommendation to the State EMS & Trauma section of MDCH to adopt the National Education Standards for all levels as the minimum standards in Michigan.

This will affect the levels of licensure (individuals and agencies), and education requirements in the following ways:

MFR – the current Michigan curriculum exceeds the National Education Standards so there will be no change.  Michigan will continue to call it MFR and not adopt the national title EMR (Emergency Medical Responder)

EMT – the current Michigan curriculum exceeds the National Education Standards so there will be no change.

EMT-P – the current Michigan curriculum will need some enhancement in content.  A task force is being formed to do a gap analysis.

EMT-S - the current Michigan curriculum will need a major renovation.  Michigan will continue to call it EMT-S and not adopt the national title of AEMT (Advanced EMT).  The new EMT-S will require approximately an additional 100 hours of education above of what the current EMT-S receives.  The Society of Michigan EMS Instructor Coordinators (SMEMSIC) has offered to develop this bridge course. A large focus of the additional hours will focus on some pharmacology.  The new EMT-S will be trained to administer the following drugs; IV narcotic antagonist (Narcan), inhaled beta agonist (Albuteral), IV D-50, IM glucagon, inhaled nitrous oxide, sublingual nitroglycerine, and sub-q/IM epinephrine.  IV/IO access is in the national curriculum but endotracheal intubation is not, that has been replaced by blind insertion airway devices (BIAD) or supra-glottic airway devices (SAD) e.g. Combitube, King LT.

Individuals or agencies who do not want to upgrade to the new EMT-S will, by default, downgrade to the EMT level.

An implementation date has yet to be announced.  A bridge course and testing process will be developed to upgrade the current EMT-S to the new EMT-S

There was very little discussion amongst EMSCC members in regards to the MFR, EMT and EMT-P motions however, the EMT-S discussion/debate was very intense and spirited.  During these discussions it was identified approximately 25% of the current EMT-S services are actually providing care above the current EMT-S.  It was also identified even though the EMT-S curriculum will be changing it is still the responsibility of the local medical control authority to approve the additional therapies or permitting paramedic services to downgrade to the new EMT-S.

For additional information on the National Education Standards visit www.ems.gov.

Submitted by David Maatman
NREMT-P/IC

At the request of MDCH, SMEMSIC has formed a work group to assist the State with a total review of the current Instructor Coordinator Course Objectives.  After a number of meetings in Lansing, the work group is approximately 3/4 done with the review process.  At a meeting today, the work group continued work on module 19 and will work late into the afternoon.

It appears that one more meetings of the work group will be needed to complete the review.  After the entire document is reviewed by the work group, suggested changes will be forwarded to MDCH for further review and possible implementation.  If you have any questions on these meetings or comments on the IC objectives in general, please let me know.

At the request of MDCH, SMEMSIC has formed a work group to assist the State with a total review of the current Instructor Coordinator Course Objectives.  The work groups first meeting was held in Lansing on March 24 and work was started on a review of the 388 page document that details the requirements for a EMS Instructor Coordinator Education Program in Michigan.

After an initial review of the first module in the document, home work was assigned for work group members to streamline the future meetings and 3 additional meeting dates were set for further work on the document.  After the entire document is reviewed by the work group, suggested changes will be forwarded to MDCH for further review and possible implementation.

We will keep members advised on the progress of the work group and any changes that are made based on the work groups recommendations.  As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions.

On March 24, a number of SMEMSIC board members attended a meeting in Lansing involving discussions on the direction the State should take with the Specialist License Level in Michigan.  This discussion, in part, is based on the fact that there is no certification level that is close to our specialist level with the national standards.  While it is clear that Michigan may move away from testing with NREMT, there is still a need to determine if the specialist level will remain as it currently is, be eliminated or have additional skills added to the level.

Prior to the meeting, a decision had been made to recommended to the EMSCC that the level remain as it is.  There was discussion during this meeting that there might be advantages of adding certain skill sets to this license level.  The issue will be discussed at the next EMSCC meeting in Lansing and it is unclear if the EMSCC will vote to make a recommendation on the matter or send it back to committee for further work.  SMEMSIC will try to keep all members up to date on the progress as further information becomes available.

The conference is over and we want to thank all of you who made the conference a success.  It was the best attended conference in SMEMSIC history and will be remembered for the record attendance as well as the speakers and attendees that made the learning experience have such an impact.

If you attended the conference but did not complete your conference survey, I would like to encourage you to click here to complete your survey.  As a conference attendee, you input is important to us as we plan future conferences.

We have posted pictures from the Spring 2010 conference on our conference page.  You may click here to go to our conference page and view the pictures as well as information on the Fall 2010 conference. 

For members who attended the conference, your conference continuing education slips will be available on your member profile page soon.  If you are a non member who attended the conference, we will email you continuing education slip to you at the email address you provided with your registration.

The first day of the conference was very successful and conference registrations are now at 231 attendees.  That is the best attendance for a conference in our organizations history.

The MDCH EMS Report presentation is online for members to view and it also includes the entire audio of the session.  The file is in a flash format and is large due to the almost two hours of audio.  The slides are set up to auto advance so that you can just listen to the audio if you wish or you can also watch the slides.  The slides do not advance matching the audio but are timed to end when the audio does.  However, you can sit at your computer and manually advance the slides to match the audio if you wish.  Please let us know how you like this format and give us your suggestions.  We believe this will be helpful for members who could not attend the conference to catch up on what was discussed at the MDCH EMS Report session.  It will also allow conference attendees to listen to the session again to refresh their memory about items discussed.  You can click on the picture above to go to the conference files page.  You will need to log in as a member to view teh page.

Today's sessions at the conference will focus on Challenges that students and instructors face as well as using humor to reduce the stress of those challenges when appropriate.  Check back tomorrow for updates on today's conference activities.

As we begin the first full day of the conference, registered attendance just reached 230 for the first time in our organizations history.  Conference attendees are looking forward to a full day of General and Breakout sessions covering topics from EMSIC date to Collaborative Learning.

While online registration is closed, you can still register for the conference as a walk in by stopping at the registration desk.  We look forward to an exciting day tomorrow with national presenters Steve Berry and John O'Leary.

Check back here for updates and we will have information on the fall 2010 conference on the web site soon.  Let us know if you have any questions and welcome to Traverse City if you are here with us or come on up and register for tomorrow's sessions.

The time is here! Today is the first day of our 62nd Professional Development Conference, "The Challenge of Time".  Today is our preconference day and we have two sessions today for first day attendees.

The Assessment and Treatment of Trauma session starts today at 8am and runs until 6pm.  This full day course will prepare attendees to coordinate and instruct sessions for prehospital providers to better prepare them to made quick decisions about the card and destination of trauma patients in the field.

The second preconference session, Kinesthetic Learning, starts today at 1pm.  The session will explore kinesthetic and psychomotor teaching and learning.  Participants will develop and demonstrate kinesthetic techniques for the classroom.

The weather has turned about to be great so you can still travel and register as a walk in.  Right now we have 226 attendees registered for the conference so this will be the most highly attended conference in our history.  Check back here throughout the conference for updates.