National EMS Preparedness Initiative Policy Summit

October 16-17, 2006 - Washington DC

Forty-nine EMS Chiefs, Officers, Administrators and Directors from America’s largest cities gathered for the first time in the 40 year history of EMS to discuss salient issues regarding the EMS role in protection, preparedness, response and recovery. Participants represented the full spectrum of delivery models, including but not limited to: hospital-based, fire-based, private for-profit, and third service providers.

This Summit was convened by The George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute through a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. The grant is being used for activities such as the Summit to develop research, education, and policy on EMS in America’s largest cities.

Participants at the National EMS Preparedness Summit were divided into small discussion groups of six attendees. Each group had its own table facilitator, recorder and Steering Committee member to ensure that every participant had the opportunity to voice their opinion.  The participants were asked to identify the issues that they felt impacted their ability to respond to large scale events.  This was done through the table facilitation process and subsequent voting by the participants identified the following major issues:

Definition and solutions about each issue from each table were collected using the networked computers.  A “theme team” reviewed the comments from all of the tables simultaneously and reported the common ideas back to the group within minutes. Then using keypad polling devices, the participants reviewed and prioritized these ideas in order to develop a clear plan for action. The results from the polls were reported instantly to the group via large screens.  

The proceedings will be made public once they are reviewed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.  For updates and further information, visit www.nationalemspreparedness.org.