Industry Trends

Get Ready: Medicare Is Changing the Way It Pays for Healthcare
By Gary Wingrove, Aarron Reinert and Bill Dunwoody
Republicans call the new payment methodology Pay for Performance (P4P) and Democrats call it Value Based Purchasing (VBP). Whatever the term, the principles are the same: Reward those that can demonstrate using evidence-based medicine – medicine that demonstrates improved patient outcomes – and punish those that can’t.

Deepen the Art of Inquiry
By John Becknell
As we have sought clinical and broad tactical knowledge, most of our inquiry in emergency services has been based on numbers and measurement. We needed the numbers to understand that MAST trousers are not the appropriate tool in trauma, that compressions are more valuable then ventilations, and that specific fireground practices cost property and lives. Now, we must answer other questions.

Point-Counterpoint: FEMA Should Stay in DHS
Three prominent fire service leaders have sent a letter to President Obama urging him to leave the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The letter asserts that moving FEMA out of DHS “would have a deleterious effect on the safety of the American public.”

Point-Counterpoint: Make FEMA an Independent Agency
By William C. Nicholson, Esq.
For the emergency management community, many thoughts turn at this time of transition to the future of the relationship between Department of Homeland Security and FEMA. Theirs has been a rocky road since DHS’ establishment on March 1, 2003. At the heart of the agencies’ friction is an ongoing disagreement regarding prioritization of scarce resources.

NEMSMA Recommends Changes to the Obama Administration
The National EMS Management Association has recommended a variety of ways in which the federal government can strengthen EMS, in response to a call from the Obama Administration to submit recommendations for change to the healthcare system to Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Daschle.

Congressional Caucuses: Effective Advocates for Emergency Services?
Of the more than 300 caucuses on the Hill, several represent emergency services interests, including the Congressional Fire Services Caucus, the Congressional Air Medical Caucus, the E-911 Caucus, and, new this year, the EMS Caucus. Membership in one or more of these caucuses is likely to impact the member’s future support for and voting record on emergency services issues.

Budget Cuts Threaten Lives and Property, Survey Finds
Americans should expect slower responses when they call 911 in the coming year, which may result in greater risk to lives and property, according to a survey of more than 450 fire and EMS managers by Best Practices in Emergency Services and the National EMS Management Association.

Go Green in the New Year to Minimize Your Environmental Impact
Most emergency services managers try to be good stewards of their organizations and make responsible and ethical decisions about business dealings, finance, human resources management and the like. What many managers fail to realize is that stewardship also extends to the environment in which they operate. Seth Hawkins, MD, founded the Green EMS Initiative to raise awareness about the environmental impact of EMS operations.

Ambulance Safety Finally Gains National Attention
Researchers and experts in transportation safety will convene later this month in Washington, DC, for the first-ever Ambulance Transportation Safety Summit, sponsored by the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies. The summit, which will be Webcast, will present the current state of ambulance safety research and assemble through the meeting proceedings a reference document of all currently available, but heretofore disparate, published scientific research on ambulance safety.

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