Mount Sinai Health System and UC San Diego Partner to Promote Innovation in Emergency Medical Services
As part of nationwide efforts to discover and implement best practices for emergency medical care, the Mount Sinai Health System today announced the launch of its “Promoting Innovations in Emergency Medical Services” project, in collaboration with University of California, San Diego Health System.
As part of nationwide efforts to discover and implement best practices for emergency medical care, the Mount Sinai Health System today announced the launch of its “Promoting Innovations in Emergency Medical Services” project, in collaboration with University of California, San Diego Health System. The project’s goals include identifying and addressing the regulatory, financial and technological obstacles to improving our nation’s EMS systems. It is supported by a $225,000 grant from the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.
“Our hope is to engage with a diverse group of stakeholders to create a pathway for the widespread implementation of best practices and delivery system reforms in emergency medical services across the U.S.,” said Kevin Munjal, MD, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Munjal is a Co-Project Director, along with James Dunford, MD, Professor Emeritus of the UC San Diego Health System and EMS Medical Director for the City of San Diego.
Leaders in the field have long recognized that EMS could serve as a vital link in a coordinated healthcare system focused on population health management. EMS could help identify and modify risk, assess and facilitate treatment of chronic conditions, and improve coordination of care for acute complaints. The rapidly evolving healthcare landscape – especially in an era of health care reform – provides an opportunity to capitalize on this potential.
Novel rural and urban EMS programs, including the one at Mount Sinai, have begun filling gaps in systems of care. Indeed, terms such as “community paramedicine” and “mobile integrated healthcare” are used to describe how the full clinical, operational, and financial capacity of EMS could be harnessed.
As EMS agencies strive to innovate within the current infrastructure, they face challenges from existing laws, regulations and even mind-sets. The project team is aware of the delicate balance between enabling innovation while still protecting public health and safety through regulatory oversight and maintaining a statewide systems approach to the provision of emergency medical care. State Offices of EMS play a vital role in fostering innovation and will be vital stakeholders in this project which seeks to develop model legal, regulatory, and financial frameworks to assist and encourage state and local health systems to test new EMS delivery models.
“This is a fantastic opportunity for EMS to merge imagination, sound medicine and health information technology to improve care and lower cost,” said Dr. Dunford of UC San Diego. “Tomorrow’s innovations will likely improve domestic preparedness, increase patient access to care, decrease healthcare costs and improve community resilience.”
For more information, visit www.EMSinnovations.org
Key aspects of the project include:
• Collection of input from key EMS and community healthcare stakeholders from around the country.
• Regional stakeholder meetings will be held in San Diego and New York in May of 2015, with a focus on incorporating national input into overcoming local barriers to EMS innovation.
• A national steering committee to be convened in Washington, D.C. in September 2015.
• An iterative approach to drafting materials and soliciting feedback through in person, telephonic, and online encounters with stakeholder groups.
• The creation of a National Framework Document that will be a broadly representative, thoroughly vetted tool that will offer a useful pathway to harness the full potential of EMS.
About the Mount Sinai Health System
Mount Sinai Health System is one of the nation’s leading integrated academic health systems and one of the largest in the New York metropolitan area. Its comprehensive system includes seven hospitals, more than 400 outpatient practices, over 600 research and clinical laboratories, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, and the Mount Sinai Phillips School of Nursing. Together, the Health System comprises approximately 48,000 employees, more than 9,000 physicians, and 8,600 nurses.
As a leading learning health system, Mount Sinai combines clinical expertise with scientific discovery to improve patient care while training the next generation of health care and biomedical leaders. The Health System provides care across every stage of life, from prenatal care through geriatrics, while advancing personalized medicine through artificial intelligence, data science, and biomedical research.
Mount Sinai is consistently recognized among the nation’s leading academic health systems for patient care, research, and education. The Mount Sinai Hospital is ranked No. 1 in New York by Newsweek and No. 5 on the magazine’s World’s Best Hospitals list. The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai ranks No. 11 among U.S. medical schools and No. 1 among freestanding medical schools for National Institutes of Health funding, reflecting the strength of its scientific enterprise and leadership in biomedical research.
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