HOW TO: Engage EMS in Your Hospital Meetings ... and Beyond!

It was my first day in my new role as the STEMI/Chest Pain Coordinator. Because this position had been vacant for a year, the To Do list was daunting to say the least. As I attended my first meeting, I noticed that the EMS personnel in attendance was completely disengaged. I’m sure if I called him out on it he would have claimed that he was taking notes. In reality, he was probably playing Angry Birds or Words With Friends. I didn’t blame him. We weren’t a cohesive team and it showed.

The meeting was uneventful. Afterwards, my new boss said something to the effect that EMS is always disengaged and “Good luck with that!” I needed the EMS team to be on my side in order to build a successful program.

Fast forward 30 days.

You wouldn’t believe the next meeting. EMS was there … they were engaged … and they really changed the dynamics of the meeting. So what in the world did I do?

Shane’s TOP Secrets to Engage EMS:

1. Meet them on their turf. We always ask EMS to attend our hospital meetings, but have you ever stepped outside the brick and mortar? I will never forget the look on their face when I walked into their station. The first response was, “Oh no ... What did I do.”
   
   But they did nothing wrong. I didn’t have an agenda. I just showed up to say I was sorry. They were more than a signature on our meeting minutes and that’s historically all we used them for. You see, for STEMI accreditation you have to include EMS in your meetings and the hospital felt that as long as we had their name on the meeting minutes, that’s all we needed to do. Wrong.
   

2. Find the wins. I found a case where they did everything right. Of course, there were other cases I could have chosen to share “opportunities for improvement.” But I didn’t. I was looking to emphasize best practices. I requested those medics at the next meeting along with the Director of the EMS agency. The first agenda item was to review a great case and simply give recognition to the medic for his recognition, treatment and activation of our Code STEMI team. IMPORTANT: This wasn’t false praise. They did a fantastic job. It was real and this is important. The key is to build a genuine relationship.
   

3. Align Schedules. Coordinate all of your teams that require EMS presence on the same day. We were having a 7:00am STEMI meeting on Thursdays and separate 8:00am Stroke meeting on Fridays. We moved the STEMI meeting to Friday at 7:00 and they only had to make one trip. Wow! What a win. With one simple change, we showed that we valued their time. Their headquarters was 30 minutes away, and their appreciation was evident.
   

4. Ask them how you could do a better job for them.  We contacted EMS long before each meeting and asked them if there were any topics that they wanted to include on the agenda. We sincerely wanted to know how we could help EMS better care for STEMI patients. For years, we took from EMS, yet never added value to them. We selfishly barked orders, telling them what they could do for us, but never asked what we could do for them. Do you want to know what their request was? Transparency. They wanted follow-up on how the patient did. They wanted to know that their care and decisions help save a patient’s life. Yes … we can share our data. The performance data for STEMI and Stroke doesn’t belong to the hospital. It belongs to both EMS and the Hospital.
   

It’s that simple. At the end of the day, EMS goes to work for the same reason we do. They want to make a difference for the patient. When we value people as team members and celebrate the wins and learn from the mistakes, this creates synergy and it’s patient who wins.