Page 5 - NAEMT

NAEMT | 5
and EMS practitioners.
One of the association’s strategic goals
is to build and foster relationships with key
departments within the federal government
that have jurisdiction over EMS. For exam-
ple, NAEMT has built a strong relationship
with the U.S. Department of Homeland Se-
curity (DHS) – including the Federal Emer-
gencyManagement Agency (FEMA) – since
EMS is a critical part of the national public
safety network.
“In times of natural or man-made di-
sasters, EMS is an important component of
that public safety net,” Lane says. “We build
those relationships and we work with those
agencies to make sure the regulations that
they’re establishing or revising make sense.”
The association also works actively
with members of the U.S. Congress on legis-
lation critical to NAEMT members. Two of
the bills they’re focused on currently are the
Medicare Ambulance Access Preservation
Act of 2011 and the Veterans to Paramed-
ics Transition Act. “When military medics
return to civilian life, they need to either get
re-licensed in EMS or they need to become
licensed,” Lane explains. “They have all the
skills, but aren’t licensed at the state level.”
The third major piece of legislation
of concern to NAEMT at the moment, ac-
cording to Lane, is the Field EMS Quality,
Innovation, and Cost Effectiveness Improve-
ments Act of 2011. “This bill includes fund-
ing for local EMS agencies so they can hire,
train and equip their EMS practitioners to