The West Virginia Office of Emergency Medical Services has awarded Monongalia Emergency Medical Services (Mon EMS) a five-year accreditation as an EMS educational institution.
“We are very excited to achieve this honor and to continue the growth and development of Emergency Medicine in Monongalia County,” Jamie Chambers, director of clinical services, said. “We want to ensure that EMS providers that we are developing to serve our citizens are the best educated, trained and prepared as possible.”
This is another first for Mon EMS, which achieved accreditation in two genres. The organization will be able to provide Initial Basic Life Support (BLS) courses, which are the courses to become an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT). In addition to initial courses, Mon EMS is now also able to provide continuing education for BLS and Advanced Life Support (ALS) providers, allowing education up to the paramedic level.
“The opportunity to train new providers from day one and deliver a high equality educational experience is a huge asset to Mon EMS and Monongalia County.” said Dr. Michael Shukis, Mon EMS medical director. “In addition, the ability to offer continuing education for all of our current providers at both the basic and advanced levels ensures that the care you receive from Mon EMS is top-notch.”
Prior to this, Mon EMS has relied on other agencies to provide the course coordination and state mandated minimums for education. Bringing those components in-house allows the agency to oversee all aspects of the educational process and focus on what Mon EMS needs to serve it’s citizens.
“Our training division has adopted a mantra of ‘Train like you fight.’ ” Chambers said. “Just as in the real world, our providers will be faced with critical patients in situations that may be crazy, chaotic, uncontrollable, and critical and that may all be encapsulated in a single call. Our providers are immersed in training to provide order and expertise to those scenarios.”
After initial training, all Mon EMS providers must attend and pass biannual competencies in addition to frequent mandatory education to ensure that all skills are top of mind and refreshed frequently, especially those low-use but highly critical skills. The Mon EMS education department uses simulation, task trainers, real world scenarios, gross labs and much more to ensure that EMS providers are exposed to as many situations as possible.
Mon EMS is currently taking applications for its Full Time EMT Academy, starting in June. The application deadline is April 28. Interested applicants may find out more at monems.org/careers.
About Mon EMS
Monongalia EMS is a joint venture between Mon Health and WVU Medicine established in July 2019 in partnership with Monongalia County. Mon EMS merged the former agencies of Mon Health EMS and the WVU Healthteam into a single, unified agency to meet the needs of Monongalia County and the health systems of Mon Health and WVU Medicine. Monongalia EMS is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to provide 24/7 emergency medical services, non-emergency medical transport, event medicine and technical rescue to Monongalia County and surrounding areas.
