Emergency Medical Services Board Meeting

February 8, 2006

Board Members Present:                              Bureau Staff:

Tracy Aldrich                                                   Meg Taylor

Steve Bane                                                       Brian Litza

Brenda Fellenz                                                 Cathy Etter

Troy Haase                                                      Helen Pullen

Cal Lintz                                                          Ann Moses

Ken Johnson                                                    Paul Wittkamp

Keith Wesley                                                   LeeAnn Cooper

Mark Fredrickson                                            Dan Williams

Gloria Murawsky

Board Members Excused:

Joe Covelli

Travis Teesch

Others in Attendance:                       Representing:

Keith Kesler                                         Douglas County Emergency Management & 9-1-1

Bruce Gordon                                       MSTC EMS Medical Director

Jan Victorson                                       Bayfield County Emergency Management

Ann Peggs                                           PFFW

Vickkie Zietlow                                    Mid-State Technical College

Jerry Haberl                                         Wisconsin Emergency Management

Gregory West                                       Waukesha County Technical College

Marty Aubol                                         North Central Technical College

Carrie Meffert                                      Dane County EMS

Ann Krainyk                                         UW EMS Program

Jan Beyer                                             UW EMS Program

Steve Pilsner                                         Wausau Fire Dept.

Jim Brien                                              Marinette County Rescue Squad Assoc.

Linda Pace                                           MATC – Madison

Lauryl Pukansky                                   Milwaukee County EMS

Bart Jahnke                                          LifeQuest

Suzanne Martens                                  Sheboygan County EMS

Jeff Grimm                                           Theda Star/STAC

Bob Nack                                             Fox Valley RTAC

Nettie Jenkins                                       Thedacare

Karen Wesley                                      Gold Cross, Eau Claire

Dan Diamon                                         Lake Superior RTAC

John Schindler                                      Meda-Care Ambulance

Brian Reynolds                                     Milwaukee County EMS Council

Fred Hornby                                         Bell Ambulance

Mike Jankowski                                    Franklin FD

Sue LaFlash                                         DPH-EMSC

Jerry Miller                                          LifeQuest-Mobile Healthcare Alliance

Tom Fennell                                         Gold Cross-Mayo Medical Transport

Tracey Froiland                                    State HRSA Leadership/Thedacare

Judy Jones                                           Luther Hosp Eau Claire/NWRTAC

John Duffy                                           Fond du Lac FD

Sandy Johnson                                      St Josephs Hosp-Marshfield

Don Kimlicka                                       St Clare’s Hosp-Weston

Beth Natter                                          Mercy Hosp-Janesville

Barb Kuska                                          Beloit Memorial Hosp

Larry Knuth                                         Paratech Ambulance

Welcome and Introductions: Chair Steve Bane called the meeting to order at 10:00am at the Sheraton - Madison, WI. Steve welcomed everyone and asked the audience to introduce themselves. Dan Williams, EMS Chief announce that Dr. Keith Wesley had been selected to fill the position of EMS State Medical Director. Keith expressed his thanks for being selected and advised the Board that he would work as hard as possible with the Board and the EMS Office on related issues.

1.      Approval of previous Board Meeting Minutes: 

A Motion by, Fredrickson, second by Johnson to approve the minutes from the December 2005 meeting. Motion Carried.

2.      Committee Updates:

EMS Education: Gloria Murawsky, committee chair reported the following meeting topics:

1.      Gloria advised the Board that the final EMT-Basic curriculum had been completed and revised based on the most recent comments from committee members and Board members.  Motion by, Murawsky, second by Lintz to approve the new curriculum and forward on to the Department for finalization and approval. Motion carried.

2.      Gloria asked that a cover letter of support from DHFS and the Board accompany the document to establish that it had gone through the proper review and analysis. Motion by, Lintz, second by Murawsky to have this endorsement letter as part of the curriculum as it moves forward. Motion carried.

3.      Gloria advised that the committee was asked to assist the EMS office with determining the items that have been outlined in the scope of practices that are going to be made mandatory and by what date. The committee reviewed the Basic EMT scope and made several suggestions. Motion by Haase, second by Lintz to approve the recommended changes and forward to the EMS office for their consideration when determining mandatory practices and initiation dates. Motion carried.

4.      Gloria also stated that the committee wanted to go on record as saying it is their opinion that future EMT competency testing be scenario based.

EMS Policy and Practice Committee: Barb Kuska gave the report on behalf of Travis Teesch on the following meeting topics:

1.      The committee had completed their work on the HFS-110 revisions and wanted to forward them to the EMS office. Motion by Johnson, second by Lintz to forward the identified changes to the EMS office on HFS-110 for consideration when the rule is opened for revision in the future. Motion carried.

2.      The committee had also completed its work on the narcotic tracking template that can be used by the EMS office to assist service that may not have such a template and program. Motion by Johnson, second by Haase to forward to the EMS office the narcotic tracking template to be provided to services that have not yet developed a tracking program. Motion Carried.

3.      The committee also spent some time reviewing the Interfacility Transport Guidelines. The committee was not able to complete the review of the entire document at its meeting time and thought that it should go to the full Board with a time period for comment and approval be granted after the comment period. Motion by Haase, second by Lintz to distribute the document to the entire Board with a 10 day response period back to Dan and approval would be based on the fact that only minor items would be changed that did not effect intent. Motion Carried.

EMS Information Management: Ken Johnson, committee chair reported on the following:

1.      Dr. Johnson reported that approximately 15 to 18 services were working as pilot services and had submitted approximately 1,200 calls. The information is now being looked at to determine level of difficulty and completeness with any problems being encountered dealt with in a timely fashion.

2.      The committee wanted to go on record as stating that we should always do what ever is necessary to assure compliance with NEMSIS 2.2 data set as the back drop to what we do for compatibility purposes.

3.      Dr. Johnson also advised that the State wants to maximize their contracted hours with Image Trend in developing the training program.  Possible training ideas are to record training sessions and post on the website, provide regional workshops after the website training, and have Image Trend host webinars.  The State will have input on some of the webinar topics. The EMS office will provide updates when the educational process has been established.

4.      The committee is continuing its work on the establishment for the rules that need to be defined regarding requests for data and management of information. More information is needed to determine what rules already are in place in State agencies that will apply to this application.    

            CQI – Sub-Committee.

It was determined that this committee needs to be re-established to begin the process of working with service on how to use and evaluate the information that will be available to them from the new State EMS data management system.

EMS Public Health: Brenda Fellenz, committee chair reported on the following meeting topics:

1.      The committee is working to further define its role. It was thought that an important project would be to provide an educational campaign on the problem of people not yielding to emergency vehicles. It was discussed that it would be a good EMS week project. After further discussion it decided that with all of the other activity in EMS week this initiative could get lost. The committee will pursue other avenues for getting this information out.

2.      It was discussed that we needed to provide a stronger link between EMS and Public Health. It was suggested that with all of the information in the media about a Flu Pandemic that it would be good to develop an EMS information packet that could be used to educate EMS providers on what needs to be done to prepare. After much discussion it was agreed that the committee would look at the subject as a 2^nd project.

            Disaster – Sub-Committee

1.      Committee is looking at triage tags, regional disaster trailers, and medical surge capacity and how to address the needs in a region. They also plan to support the Triage Tuesday project and reported that HRSA will be funding the replacement of triage tags that are used for this project.

2.      The committee also plans to undertake a full inventory of the location of disaster trailer in Wisconsin and the content of the items in the trailers.

Other thoughts:

CDC has a program for athletic coaches to help prevent head injuries.  The program is free and can be accessed on the CDC web site http://www.cdc.gov/ click on the Injury and Violence link.

MMWR [Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report] will start having an out of hospital report. This report is free and can be accessed on it web site http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/ .

EMS Systems: Cal Lintz, committee chair reported on the following meeting topics:

1.      Cal reported that the committee is continuing its work on the EMS Provider Handbook. It was noted once again that the work that is being performed by the committee is to support the overall rework of the handbook that will be taking place by the EMS office. The committee’s work is to approach the handbook from the provider’s point of view. What is important to the provider, and what is not so important. It is a significant workload and one that the committee feels very committed to.

2.      The committee tabled the review of other work related items to put forth a complete effort to finishing the handbook project.

EMS-C: Susan Harvey, EMSC coordinator indicated that EMSC is very excited about the new meeting structure and looks forward to further integration among all EMS related groups. Susan also asked that all of the minutes from the Board and the Board’s sub-committees be forward to her so that she can disseminate them to her interest groups.

PAC: No one in attendance could provide a report.

State Medical Directors’ Report: Newly appointed EMS Medical Director, Dr. Keith Wesley addressed the Board and indicated that he had many areas that he will be addressing and pledged to work with the Board and EMS office as we all move EMS in Wisconsin forward. He also reported that he was very excited by the fact that at least 10 Wisconsin local Medical Directors had attended the NAEMSP national conference. It says a lot about the dedication of Wisconsin EMS.

State Trauma Report: Marianne Peck, State Trauma Coordinator reported:

The Senate public hearing on the change in PI language was being held today and several interested parties were testifying.

Marianne also reported that it is expect that the Trauma Registry will be operational the beginning of July 2006.

The work continues in preparation of establishing teams for the site review process for verification of trauma self designations that had been completed last year. Application submission and review for site team members is ongoing and teams will be established in the next few months.

Legislative Issues: Dan Williams advised the Board on several bills that were working there way through the process that have direct or indirect effect on EMS. None of the proposed bills appeared to negative towards EMS.

State Office Issues: This was the last Board meeting for retiring Bureau Director Meg Taylor. Meg has been a huge supporter of EMS activity in Department and has worked extremely hard to find money for EMS projects and has paved the way for many EMS initiatives within the Department. Several Board members expressed appreciation and best wishes to Meg as moves to Seattle with her husband. Meg will surely be missed.

Old Business: A short discussion was held regarding the ACEP report that surfaced about the poor state of preparedness for emergency care in this country. It was felt that the report was significantly flawed because of the lack of accurate information and lack of involvement from the people who could have provided the proper information. It generally agreed that it was inappropriate at best.

New Business: No new business was brought forward.

Other Board Related issues: It was discussed that the new meeting location and format seemed to work well and that there would be some slight tweaking of times to try to meet everyone’s needs and to minimize committee meeting conflicts for members.

There also was a reminder to all standing committee chairs that standing and sub-committee meeting minutes are due to Dan 15 days after the Board meeting. Agendas for the next meetings should also be submitted with the minutes so that they can be posted on the State website. These should be separate from the minutes.

Adjournment:  Motion by Johnson, second by Fredrickson to adjourn. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 3:00 PM.