RE: Another Interesting Bill

March 12, 2011

You know...the nursing home RN that aggravates you on your next shift passed the

same test as the really cool flight nurse that steps off the helicopter later in

the same shift to get their RN. It is what you do after the test that makes the

difference...we have to have a marker to get into the profession, after that it

depends on a whole host of factors as to what the person becomes.

Dudley

Another Interesting Bill

As I read all of these posts about this accreditation issue I can't help but

wonder, to be in Texas law enforcement you pass an approved course

consisting of an approved curriculum and pass a STATE TEST. To be in the

fire service in Texas you pass a course consisting of an ACCREDITED

CURRICULUM and pass a STATE TEST. Why then to be in the EMS profession in

Texas do you pass a course consisting of a national standard curriculum and

then have to take a test given by a bunch of outsiders? You can't tell me

that the DSHS can't develop and implement an evaluation process to test our

own students. We did it for years and it seemed to work fine. I received my

certification in 1988 and the course was harder than the exam. TECLOSE and

the TCFP have their own curriculums and evaluation processes for years and

they work just fine. They have never been asked to " outsource " their

evaluation process to save money. Maybe the DSHS should pay them a visit and

see how they do it.

Years ago when the legislature decided some cuts needed to be made who in

the DSHS thought that " outsourcing " our EMS testing was a good idea. It

doesn't seem to be such a good idea now does it? Especially when we have a

bunch of " outsiders " dictating to us what we are going to teach, how we will

teach it, and where they are going to allow us to teach it. The way I see it

is we have only two choices here. Either find a way to fund and take our

program back, provide oversight, and test our students ourselves or quit

whinning and move forward with the NR Accreditation process and just deal

with it. We placed ourselves in this position by relinquishing control of

the evaluation process in the first place.

In closing I just want to say that at the last Medical Director Committee

meeting Maxie Bishop hit the nail on the head when he stated " We are the

State of Texas. We should be leading not following " . We must ask ourselves

the question, " How's that outsourcing thing working out for us and are we

leading or being led? "

March 12, 2011

Rob,

Not really sure where you work, but just because there are

8 schools in a large city pumping out EMT's, don't let that confuse the fact

that not every agency in Texas has all the EMT's they can find. That is why a

number of agencies have variances from DSHS to allow them to respond with only

one certified person on the ambulance and that one person may be an ECA.

Also, since not all EMT's go inot EMS work, we shouldn't discount the fact that

we need a LOT of them because to get to any advanced level of

certification....you have to start in the EMT school and if X% of EMT graduates

never even consider Paramedic school, a decrease in the number of EMT's

graduated will result in a corresponding decrease in Paramedics...and I know we

don't have enough of them in this state.

I agree, paramedic accreditation and eventually EMT school accreditation

probably will not affect EMS in urban and many sub-urban areas of our state at

all...but there are a number of areas across the state today that are struggling

and to blindly impose more difficult entry requirements without fully taking

into account what will happen in ALL areas of Texas will hurt some areas that

are vulnerable. That is why folks are trying to SLOW down the mandatory

accreditation process so that we can help all areas of the state come along and

maybe, just maybe actually improve the level of EMS care in some areas where it

is sorely needed.

Think about this, in places where average transports are 7-8 minutes we have

more paramedics than you can count...but in areas where transports may last 90

to 120 minutes, you can't find a paramedic....or maybe not 2.

Dudley

Re: Another interesting bill

On Wednesday, March 9, 2011 21:58, THEDUDMAN@... said:

> If we do not take the time to

> figure this out on the paramedic side, a substantial loss of EMT programs will

be

> horribly detrimental to Texas.

Can you go into specifics regarding the horrible detriment you anticipate? We're

already churning out many times more EMTs than EMS needs. I'm not sure I can

agree that cutting that number back would produce any significant negative

results for EMS.

Rob

March 12, 2011