Office of EHS Provincial Medical Director
The EHS Provincial Medical Director (PMD) has the overall responsibility for managing and directing the clinical activities of all EHS programs. Essentially, the PMD ensures the quality of medical care received by patients in emergency pre-hospital settings.
Medical oversight can be divided into three areas
Prospective
This involves such aspects as education, registration, re-registration, equipment and protocol development.
Concurrent or Immediate
This involves "off line" - the provision of written policies and protocols and "on line" - the availability of physician advice in real time.
Retrospective
this involves a continuous quality improvement program that strives to improve patient care and outcomes.
Ideally, all aspects of patient care would be evaluated on patient outcomes. However, with the exception of cardiac arrests and trauma, few systems can do this. Therefore, EHS substitutes the evaluation of processes (how well we are performing in terms of assessment, documentation, protocol and scene compliance as well as skills) with the understanding that should translate into optimal outcomes.
It is essential for the enhancement of pre hospital care that EHS works to integrate pre hospital care into the health care community. The Provincial Medical Director is involved with programs that involve expanding the traditional roles of paramedics. In particular, the Long and Brier Islands Excess Capacity Project is evaluating the role of paramedics in public and primary health care delivery, teaching and prevention.
It is also of utmost importance for the advancement of pre-hospital care that EHS - including paramedics - are involved in research. In partnership with the Division of EMS under the Department of Emergency Medicine at Dalhousie University, EHS is conducting and supporting pre-hospital research. Any paramedic or researcher wishing to become involved in research or with a research proposal should contact: The Office of the Provincial Medical Director at (902) 424-1729.
As well there are several physicians listed in the Evidenced Based Protocol introduction who serve as consultants or section editors in the continual upgrade and development of our protocols.