By Stephen Smoot
Recently Jamie Weller, Chair of the West Virginia EMS Advisory Council held a call with emergency management officials in Hardy County. He provided them an update on statewide EMS changes and priorities.
Weller opened with discussion of a pilot project to help high school football players, coaches, and training staff know how to best prepare injured players for EMS assistance while also instructing each on how best to help EMTs and paramedics who respond. The project encourages county school systems to work with EMS agencies to provide training on what coaches, players, and training staff can do to assist.
“Most school systems are not in compliance,” he shared.
At least one Potomac Highlands school system has met that mandate. Pendleton County Schools invited Pendleton County Emergency Rescue to hold a training last fall on the football field. PCER President Tina Eye and Training Officer Mike Alt led the instruction that helped each understand their role in helping their teammate and EMS.
At the time, Alt stated “It’s important when the county buys in. Not every county buys in.”
The time frame for buying in may start to shrink soon. Weller shared that the State Legislature has made athlete safety, particularly in football, a priority. He said they warned him that they needed to see much better compliance “or we’ll write legislation to do it,” then added that an act of the State Legislature on the subject would likely impose more problems than if school systems simply did as requested.
Weller emphasized that only through working with an EMS agency can school systems come into compliance. He said that trainings include preparations to be done prior to the game, what EMS’s role is, and instruction on how to help other attendees besides players.
Next, Weller gave examples of areas where the advisory council and others had rolled back potential Legislative overreach. One rule proposal that did not pass would have required ambulances at every middle and high school practice and game for any sport.
“There are not enough ambulances in the state for that,” said Weller, who added “we did get that shut down” and calling it an “unfunded mandate.” He also noted that “everything we cover takes an ambulance off the street” that cannot respond to auto accidents, medical emergencies, and other needs.
Another “unfunded mandate” that would not have affected EMS would have required teams to outfit all players in the soft surface Guardian caps. These absorb, rather than deflect, energy from hard hits to the head area, but the cost of their use remains out of reach for many teams.
Weller described reforms of the EMT program that have boosted formerly abysmal pass rates. Officials looked at the top five states for EMS to determine what policies and practices they follow that West Virginia could emulate.
At one point recently, West Virginia held the worst pass rates for EMT courses in the country, hovering at near 40 percent. Revamping the format brought in the technique of benchmarking. Now students need to reach 70 percent to move on past established benchmarks but get three attempts to hit that mark.
The pass rate as a result improved to 70 percent. Weller noted that top five level states require students to post 80 to 85 percent to move forward.
Another change lay in providing an entry level course to teach the fundamentals of not just EMS, but also how to succeed in trainings and testing. Weller shared that one problem lay in the fact that the average applicant has a seventh grade reading level while the textbook is written at 10th. He also stated that many came into the program without any experience in studying a text to prepare for a test. The entry level course teaches the basics of successful studying and test preparation.
Emphasis will be placed on simulations as valuable teaching aids too.
The one area in which the State cannot change to move toward the top five group lies in the number of hours for training. While the top five require 250 hours or more, West Virginia holds the line at 155. Higher costs prevent expanding hours and the fact that instructors must pack more information into the same amount of time was a contributing factor to the previously low pass rate.
A new program that could be of interest in different parts of the state was called by Weller austere medicine training. This prepares emergency responders for situations such as wilderness rescue or natural disaster that require remaining in the field for days at a time.
Weller stated that the program “has a ton of interest and will be getting out pretty soon.”
