National Scope of Practice

I attended the National Scope of Practice presentation at City today. Very interesting. The idea behind it is to have national standards and education and a scope of practice so that a medic can go to any state and be certified or licsensed there. It would not require states to follow the guidelines exactly, but would encourage them too.

Here's the link:

www.emsscopeofpractice.com

They envision a new level called Advanced Practice Paramedic, which would require a batchelor's degree in paramedicine, and enable the practicitoner to do things such as suturing, dislocation reduction, treat and release, etc.

My initial read was that you would not getting this level in this state, but now I think maybe you could. It all depends of developing a mechanism for reimbursement and the willingness of medical control to sponsor the medics.

The one question I asked had to do with whether or not the scope addressed the increasing role of paramedics in ED's. The presenter said, it did, but I don't see it in the document. I think I may send in a comment, encouraging to detail more fully that the areas a medic may practice extend beyond an ambulance.

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I was hacking up quite a storm in the back of the room. I saw a bunch of people I had seen in a long time, and I warned them, "We're going to have to do a virtual handshake. I'm sick."

And they all said, "Get out of here, I shake hands with sick people all day," and they'd give me big solid how are you good to see you, you're my friend handshakes. So at the end, I go up to this doctor I know and he turns and looks at me, and I put my hand out to shake, and he looks at me and says, "I'm not shaking your hand. I heard you coughing, you're sick."

All right, fine.