• Press Release

Mount Sinai and UC San Diego Health Announce Framework to Promote Innovation in Emergency Medical Services

  • New York, NY
  • (February 19, 2019)

CLICK HERE to download the full report

As part of nationwide efforts to improve emergency medical care, researchers at the Mount Sinai Health System, in collaboration with UC San Diego Health, have released a national framework report titled “Promoting Innovations in Emergency Medical Services” that identifies regulatory, financial, and technological obstacles to improving local and state EMS systems. The report also provides recommendations to create a more dynamic system that is more responsive to society’s needs.

As EMS agencies strive to innovate within the current infrastructure, they face challenges from existing laws, regulations, and industry perceptions. Researchers identified seven major themes of these challenges—regulation, finance, education, regional EMS coordination, interdisciplinary collaboration, medical direction, and data/telecommunications—and made more than 250 recommendations for stakeholders to overcome barriers to EMS innovation.

“The potential for innovation in EMS is enormous, but we need to find ways to unleash that potential, so that emergency medical services can be transformed to better meet the needs of patients and communities,” said project co-director Kevin Munjal, MD, MPH, MSCR, Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

“Tomorrow’s innovations will improve domestic preparedness, increase patient access to care, decrease health care costs, and improve community resilience,” said project co-director James Dunford, MD, Professor Emeritus at UC San Diego School of Medicine and EMS Medical Director for the City of San Diego.

The project’s leadership was composed of a diverse group of stakeholders, including representation from state and local government, EMS agencies, health systems, health care professions, and experts in paramedicine, economics, public health, and political science.  The process included a national survey, stakeholder interviews, regional conferences, national meetings, and public comment.

The research was supported by grants from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Health Affairs, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 

About UC San Diego Health

UC San Diego Health, the region’s only academic health system, is dedicated to delivering outstanding patient care through commitment to community, groundbreaking research and inspired teaching. For 2018-19, U.S. News and World Report ranked UC San Diego Health among the nation’s best in six adult medical and surgical specialties, including pulmonology, geriatrics, cardiology, cancer, neurology and orthopedics. The 808-bed academic health system includes UC San Diego Medical Center in Hillcrest and Jacobs Medical Center, Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center, Moores Cancer Center, Shiley Eye Institute, Koman Family Outpatient Pavilion and Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, all in La Jolla, as well as primary care and same-day services at clinics throughout Southern California. For more information, visit health.ucsd.edu


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.