The role of the volunteer EMS provider---

daedalus

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(title continued) in the rapidly changing landscape of emergency medical care and medical care in general. What will it be?

Dr Whitecoat *fantastic blog, check it out* posted:

When a hospital ED closes, it’s no big deal – until it happens to be the only hospital within a 22 mile radius of your home. Residents of the western NY town of Westfield are worried that if their hospital emergency department closes they will have no access to timely care in emergencies and won’t be able to get to other emergency departments during winter snow storms (last year the area got 273 inches of snow). Because there are no paid ambulance services available, there is also an issue whether volunteer EMTs will be able to take 3 hours off from their jobs to transport patients to outlying hospitals. And what happens if there is more than one emergency call at a time?
More of the post here http://www.epmonthly.com/whitecoat/

To be honest, the blog post is not about volunteer EMTs or even EMS really at all, but it does get me thinking. The duties and responsibilities of EMS are going to change a lot in the next 5 years because of the changing healthcare system in America. We will be asked to do things we normally do not do, and learn about things in school we do not traditionally attribute to EMS. According to the new paramedic model, we may very well become gatekeepers to the healthcare system.

Volunteer EMTs provide a vital service to their community, however, what will happen when educational standards are risen and include more of a public health aspect than ever before? Also, what will the volunteers say about having to transport a pysch patient a hundred miles away instead of the local ER to prevent crowding and act in their new role of a gatekeeper? There are all sorts of similar scenarios and they all lead to an increased burden on EMS to do the right thing and ask what we can do to help with the health care crisis in our country. Are volunteers ready to adapt to closing ERs all across the nation? To increased educational standards?
 
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