The HASD&IC Board of Directors convened on March 30. Board Chair Patrick Frias, MD, President & CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego, officiated. Welcome was expressed to new board member, Frank P. Pearson, DPT, PA-C, director at VA San Diego Healthcare System.
Special guests from San Diego County Fire — Jeff Collins, director, and Andy Parr, emergency medical services (EMS) administrator — provided the board with an update on the county of San Diego’s EMS Strategic Plan for 2023-2027. The mission, vision, and strategic goals of EMS reflect a coordinated system of fire protection and emergency medical services. Priority areas of focus include:
- Review and validation of trauma catchments
- Review and proposal of areas to modernize and streamline the existing base hospital medical direction system
- Improving emergency department status metrics and display
- Formation of an EMS Initiative Workgroup to discuss and bridge shared challenges
Implementation of community paramedicine and alternate destination strategies was also presented and discussed. Board members expressed the need for regional work on throughput issues to appropriate settings outside of hospitals and EMS metrics that include the strategies hospitals implement internally to maximize emergency department capacity.
For more information, contact Dimitrios Alexiou, dalexiou@hasdic.org.
