North Dakota Rural EMS Improvement Project

The North Dakota Rural EMS Improvement Project was conducted from May 2010 through June 2011. It sought to understand the challenges facing rural EMS in North Dakota and strengthen rural EMS through assessment, leadership training, recruitment and retention education and quality activities. Funded by the state as a one-time competitively funded grant administered by the Division of Emergency Medical Services and Trauma (DEMST) the grant was awarded to SafeTech Solutions, LLP, a national EMS consulting firm with experience in assessing and developing rural EMS systems.

Rural EMS Improvement Project Final Report

The project created a variety of documents and reports. Below is a brief description of these documents and reports with links for download for your use. 

The Rural Ambulance Service Leader's Survival Guide

This guidebook was designed to assist the rural ambulance service leader in understanding the big challenges facing rural EMS in North Dakota today. It was based on the real experiences of scores of rural ambulance service leaders in North Dakota and across the United States.

Survival Guide

Volunteer Ambulance Service Sustainability: A Self-Assessment Tool

Volunteer ambulance services across America are experiencing increasing challenges in recruiting and retaining volunteers. Many are facing critical volunteer shortages. This tool was designed to help the volunteer ambulance service self-assess their strengths, weaknesses and long-term survivability. It was also designed as a learning tool for ambulance services to understand how to maximize their appeal to a shrinking pool of potential volunteers.

Self-Assessment Tool

How Good is Your Ambulance Service?  A Basic Quality Kit for Rural North Dakota Ambulance Services

This Basic Quality Kit was designed to help rural ambulance services take a practical approach to quality and begin to identify and monitor key performance indicators. The kit was designed to help rural ambulance service leaders take a look at their services from the perspective of their customers — the patients. It was also designed to promote thinking about how to ensure that an ambulance service is consistently providing the quality of services patients and customers want and need. It includes a booklet that introduces basic quality concepts and a check List for beginning a rural ambulance service quality program. 

Basic Introduction to Quality booklet

Basic Quality Check List

An Introduction to Rural EMS Medical Direction in North Dakota

This guide introduces the rural physician, to rural EMS medical direction in North Dakota. It provides a basic framework for understanding the role, its obligations and responsibilities. It addresses the unique conditions and challenges of medical direction for rural and frontier EMS agencies in North Dakota and provides useful suggestions, documents and forms.  Some of the forms are in MS Word for downloading and customization. 

Introduction to Rural EMS Medical Direction

Sample Medical Director Job Description

Sample Medical Director/Ambulance Services Contract

Sample Provider Credentialing Process Form

Pembina County EMS Assessment 2010

This report is an assessment of EMS in Pembina County that sought to provide a description and analysis of the EMS system in Pembina County, North Dakota as it appeared in 2010, along with recommendations for improvement. The assessment focused on the out-of-hospital components of the EMS system, which includes emergency call taking, dispatching, responding, medical transportation and their supporting services.

Pembina County Report

A Report on the Urban and Rural EMS Cooperation and Collaboration in Cass County North Dakota

This is a report on a regional approach to EMS in rural Cass County North Dakota that suggests that leadership and regional collaboration based on relational trust may make rural ambulance and first-responder services stronger and more sustainable.

Cass County Report

A Report of the Impact of Oil and Energy Development on Out-of-Hospital Emergency Medical Services in Dunn, McKenzie, Mountrail, and Williams Counties

This is a report on an emerging crisis for EMS in four North Dakota counties brought on by rapid and continuing energy development.

Oil Impact Report

A Vision For The Future of EMS in North Dakota

A Strategic Visioning Committee was formed in 2010 as a part of the North Dakota Rural
Emergency Medical Services Improvement Project (NDREMSIP). The committee was charged with the responsibility of looking to year 2020 to determine the vision for the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) System of the future. A collaboration of key EMS stakeholders within the state identified the following vision for a true EMS system in North Dakota. The following document was created by this Strategic Visioning Committee.

EMS Vision 2020