Comments on EDXL-RM from an Emergency Medical Services Perspective

["Greg Mears" <gdm@med.unc.edu>]

Greetings,

 

The comments below are in reference to the public comment period for the
Emergency Data Exchange Language Resource Messaging (EDXL-RM) 1.0 Committee
Draft 01, dated February 20th, 2007.

 

I am Greg Mears and serve as a co-investigator for the National EMS
Information System Project (NEMSIS) which is the national data and XML
standard for Emergency Medical Services (Ambulance Services) in the United
States.  This standard is in place within EMS Systems across the country and
is funded by the Department of Transportation's (DOT) National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration's (NHTSA) Office of Emergency Medical
Services.

 

First I would like to commend the workgroup on their efforts to standardize
this messaging approach to data sharing between emergency and other
information systems.  This standard serves to coordinate communication
between emergency responders and would be especially valuable in disaster
management.  There are several comments I would like to make regarding this
proposed standard:

 

1.	The Emergency Medical Services component of Emergency Management is
not addressed in this standard at all.

a.	There is no provision to define a message requesting medical
resources which could include personnel, medical equipment, or special
patient care requirements
b.	There is no provision to define a medical need which could be used
to determine a medical response to a request
c.	There is no provision to define medical capabilities to better
describe a request

2.	This standard tends to be limited to an event without to capability
or capacity to describe a medical or patient care scenario

a.	There is a need to define the number of patients in an event
b.	There is a need to describe the type of medical event or situation
c.	There is a need to include patient specific information (not patient
identifiers) in the EDXL to determine the resources required for a medical
response

3.	The message type is limited to request or response

a.	In many medical scenarios, the message may be to provide information
without a request and not in response to another request.

 

In summary, this messaging standard does not provide for any level of
communication or direction to the emergency medical services consisting of
ambulances, medical equipment, EMS personnel with specific skills or
specialty, transportation of patients, rescue or hazmat response, etc.
outside of free text information. 

 

It would be best if this structure used a defined dataset such as NEMSIS to
better define and outline potential emergency medical requests so that EMS
Systems across the county could better provide the level of service,
personnel, equipment, and clinical care required in a timely manner.

 

Thank you,

 

Greg Mears, MD

National EMS Information System Project 

________________________________

Greg Mears, MD

Associate Professor

North Carolina EMS Medical Director

The EMS Performance Improvement Center

 

Department of Emergency Medicine

University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

100 Market Street

Chapel Hill, North Carolina  27516

919-843-0201

 <mailto:gdm@med.unc.edu> gdm@med.unc.edu