The NEMSIS TAC and IHE USA have partnered to improve data interoperability between emergency medical services (EMS) and the rest of healthcare.

Historically, EMS has been left out of national healthcare data interoperability efforts. EMS providers rarely have real-time electronic access to the medical history of their patients, EMS patient care reports (PCRs) are rarely available within the electronic health records (EHRs) of the hospitals to which EMS transports patients, and EMS rarely receives electronic notification of the hospital outcomes of their patients.

Webinar on EMS/Hospital Interoperability

This webinar reviews the work on the EMS Interoperability Task Force, covering how EMS providers can participate in existing health information networks to share data, what EMS vendors need to do to implement connections with health information networks, and where to find resources for implementing interoperability in EMS.

Task Force

The NEMSIS/IHE EMS Interoperability Task Force brings together EMS and healthcare data system developers, along with other stakeholders, to tackle interoperability challenges. Our mission: ensure patient histories reach EMS providers, EMS reports are sent to hospitals, and hospitals provide outcomes to EMS crews. Topics include:

• Identifying data exchange partners and establishing relationships
• Governmental, regulatory, and contractual environment
• Healthcare data standards
• Technical standards and profiles to use in data exchanges
• Data elements to be shared and parsed
• APIs
• Sequence of interactions/workflow
• Patient identification and record matching

The Task Force met monthly from February 2023 through June 2024. Access the recorded meetings here.

The Task Force continues to collaborate via a Google Group and may have additional meetings as needed. Access the Task Force Google Group here.

GitHub Repository

The NEMSIS/IHE EMS Interoperability GitHub repository contains resources generated by the EMS Interoperability Task Force and other work to support interoperability implementations.

Access the EMS Interoperability GitHub Repository here.

Wiki

The wiki site is a work in progress intended to document our findings and recommendations for EMS interoperability. The wiki is a great place to start if you’re new to EMS interoperability.

Access the EMS Interoperability Wiki here.

IHE EMS Interoperability Solutions

The IHE EMS Interoperability Solutions site is a draft implementation guide for EMS interoperability. It includes workflow/sequence diagrams illustrating the EMS use cases for interoperability.

Access EMS Interoperability Solutions here.

2023 EMS Data Summit 2.0

This meeting brought together EMS data specialists and software vendors from across the nation, providing them with an exclusive opportunity to delve deep into the world of standardized emergency medical services (EMS) data.