The challenge is many of the interventions that increase safety can be difficult to implement for a number of reasons: cost, resistance to culture change, and a lack of knowledge of the risks involved, just to name a few. While not a new topic in healthcare, the inclusion of safety in this statement represents the first time that the topic is introduced into a federal government publication on emergency medical services, marking the progress and importance of patient safety initiatives. In the landmark document, “EMS Agenda 2050” leaders are challenged to create a people-centered emergency medical services (EMS) system that “serves as the front line of a region’s healthcare system and plays a core role in supporting the well-being of community residents and visitors through data-driven, evidence-based, and safe approaches to prevention, response, and clinical care”. Actively addressing fatigue and employing fatigue mitigation strategies can be used to enhance the safety of patients and will likely enhance the experience of prehospital clinicians in the organization. Lastly, an emergency medical services clinician-oriented topic that also heavily impacts our patients is fatigue mitigation. There are patient-focused topics such as medication safety protocols, structured handoffs, and competency assessments of high-risk procedures that all serve to increase patient safety.
Couple that with ambulance operations topics, such as speed and light and siren use and that covers a large swath of the patient safety engineered into the system. The design and structure of the ambulance are the first layer of protection for patients. A culture of safety in emergency medical services can enhance patient outcomes and improve the overall safety in a community. Often patient safety is not viewed as a fun or exciting topic by prehospital clinicians, but it need not be a burden. Patients deserve high-quality, evidence-based care delivered from the moment they call for help to the moment they are safely delivered to the hospital.
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