The Priority and Future of Research in EMS

Allina Health EMS Researcher Lori Boland, MPH At Allina Health EMS, a small research team works inside the St. Paul, Minnesota-based EMS agency, which has more than 600 care providers and serves more than 100 communities in the region. We sat down with Lori Boland, MPH, principal research scientist at Allina Health EMS, to discuss the importance of research in EMS.Lori is a clinical epidemiologist who collaborates with emergency medicine physicians and prehospital clinicians in support of investigator-initiated research in the area of emergency services at Allina Health EMS. She earned her MPH in epidemiology with an emphasis in cardiovascular disease from the University of Minnesota. Her primary research interests include prehospital management of sudden cardiac arrest, mechanical compression, CPR quality and EMS provider well-being. Q: Why is peer-reviewed and agency-led research important in the field of EMS? A: Research is really the best way to build a solid body of evidence for any practice in medicine. It's empirically based so that you're not just guessing at what might work. You're actually proving what does work or what doesn't work, which is equally important. In conducting research at an EMS agency, we are doing applied setting research and contributing to the evidence-base about the practice of prehospital care. Like every EMS agency, our patients are our number one priority. By doing research, we are informing how the actions we take can improve the care f...
Source: JEMS Administration and Leadership - Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tags: EMS Insider Exclusive Articles Operations Administration and Leadership Source Type: news