NYMIHA is supporting pending legislation to redefine emergency medical services in the wake of the COVID Pandemic.
The New York Mobile Integrated Healthcare Association strongly supports proposed amendments to Article 30 of the NY Public Health Law contained in FY 2023 NY State Executive Budget, Health & Mental Hygiene, Article VII, Part F, Section 7. These amendments will update the definition of emergency medical services in New York, and ensure that the inherent value of EMS providers is recognized in New York, and that their role is aligned with definitions of EMS used throughout the nation.
Over the last two years, while our state has faced one of the greatest public health challenges of our lifetime, the EMS community was called upon repeatedly to provide support, and each time it was able to answer the call. During the initial surge when hospital capacity was severely strained, EMS was asked to help manage patients in the home. Tens of thousands of patients were assessed and treated at home under the NYS Viral Pandemic Protocol and many EMS agencies performed follow up calls and single provider responses to anyone who had lingering concerns or potential additional medical needs. Later, EMS was called upon to perform COVID testing of patients in their homes, skilled nursing facilities, and at mass testing locations while facing the same if not worse worker shortages as other workforces. The EMS community was subsequently called upon to perform COVID vaccinations and did so to an extraordinary degree throughout the state, again demonstrating the combination of operational and clinical expertise. More recently, EMS personnel were called upon to help staff hospitals and other healthcare facilities to help fill gaps in our healthcare infrastructure.
All told, it is estimated that NYS EMS personnel, both volunteer and paid professionals, performed over 1,000,000 patient encounters in settings that prior to the pandemic would have been prohibited. This incredible work demonstrated the very nature of what EMS is, always was, and ought to be. EMS is a community-based resource meant to provide for the well being of the people of that community.
Read the letter that NYMIHA is sending the key members of the State Assembly and Senate.
Please take this opportunity to locate your own legislator below, and tell them that you support these amendments.
Thank you!
Over the last two years, while our state has faced one of the greatest public health challenges of our lifetime, the EMS community was called upon repeatedly to provide support, and each time it was able to answer the call. During the initial surge when hospital capacity was severely strained, EMS was asked to help manage patients in the home. Tens of thousands of patients were assessed and treated at home under the NYS Viral Pandemic Protocol and many EMS agencies performed follow up calls and single provider responses to anyone who had lingering concerns or potential additional medical needs. Later, EMS was called upon to perform COVID testing of patients in their homes, skilled nursing facilities, and at mass testing locations while facing the same if not worse worker shortages as other workforces. The EMS community was subsequently called upon to perform COVID vaccinations and did so to an extraordinary degree throughout the state, again demonstrating the combination of operational and clinical expertise. More recently, EMS personnel were called upon to help staff hospitals and other healthcare facilities to help fill gaps in our healthcare infrastructure.
All told, it is estimated that NYS EMS personnel, both volunteer and paid professionals, performed over 1,000,000 patient encounters in settings that prior to the pandemic would have been prohibited. This incredible work demonstrated the very nature of what EMS is, always was, and ought to be. EMS is a community-based resource meant to provide for the well being of the people of that community.
Read the letter that NYMIHA is sending the key members of the State Assembly and Senate.
Please take this opportunity to locate your own legislator below, and tell them that you support these amendments.
Thank you!