Quality Over Coffee
Stop by with your cup of coffee for a brief and casual discussion about topics related to quality management. While the content is focused on EMS, it will also be pertinent to hospital staff with an interest in quality improvement of systems of care for time sensitive conditions. The length of the episodes of this video series will vary, but are typically around 5 minutes long – perfect for taking a few minutes out of your day for a knowledge and caffeine boost.
Honoring Dr. Eugene Nagel
On January 10, 2023, the EMS community lost another founding father – Dr Eugene Nagel. A news story from the newspaper in Lakeland, FL, near where he lived until his passing, is linked below.
I had the honor and privilege of knowing Dr. Nagel. He graciously agreed to join me for an internet radio show called “Insights” on Mobile Healthcare Radio that I started back in the very early 2000’s (before the iPod and podcasts were invented). The show was a part of the Mobile Healthcare Forum – one of the early EMS portal sites (no longer in existence but can be accessed via the InternetWayback site). The audio recording of my interview of Dr. Nagel is presented here in his honor.
Benchmarking in EMS
Benchmarking provides a way to make useful comparisons between your performance and the performance of other in EMS or other industries with similar processes. Benchmarks in emergency medical services can also provide a reference for setting performance goals. This segment provides a high level description of benchmarks in emergency medical services use baselines when planning and implementing an emergency medical services quality improvement project. The example used in this segment is in context of EMS STEMI care.
Duration: 2 minutes 56 seconds
Baselines
Baselines are used to show how well a process is performing at or before the start of a quality improvement project. This segment provides a very basic explanation of what baselines are and how to use them when planning and implementing an emergency medical services quality improvement project. The example used in this segment is in context of EMS STEMI care.
Duration: 2 minutes, 1 second
Outcomes, Process, and Balancing Measures
There are several types of performance measures used in EMS. One of way of categorizing them is with the labels of outcome, process and balancing measures. Learn what these terms mean, how they differ from each other, and how to use each of them in your portfolio of EMS quality measures. The example used in this episode is in context of EMS STEMI care.
Duration 3 min 54 sec
Acronyms for Quality
There’s a lot of acronyms used in quality management. Knowing what those acronyms stand for and the what their specific meanings are is not always obvious. Some of them are very similar to each other, so knowing these differences between them is also important. Some of the more common acronyms used in describing overall quality programs are covered in this segment.
Duration: 7 min 59 sec
Improvement Hypothesis
EMS quality managers usually don’t see themselves as scientists, but when they implement a well designed improvement project, they ARE using the scientific method. This segment describes the parallels between the design of EMS quality improvement projects and the design of scientific research projects.
Duration: 3 minutes, 18 seconds
Quality Police
The quality departments of many EMS organizations have less than desirable reputations with the field staff. Why is this? Explore the reasons and get some ideas on how to fix that reputation by embracing a different philosophy about how to manage quality in EMS.
Duration: 5 min 5 sec
CME Prescriptions
Working EMS professionals can have vastly different clinical experiences and call volumes. Is a one-size-fits-all approach the best way to organize their continuing medical education programs? This episode explores the improvement opportunity idea of creating a prescription for each clinician based on a personal needs assessment.
Duration: 2 min 58 sec
Career Goals and CME
Continuing education programs for EMS professionals should actually continue their professional development – not just maintain it. This episode considers the idea of designing an EMS CME program that helps your clinicians make progress towards their long term career goals and pursue their specific interests in EMS.
Duration: 3 min 9 sec