Effective innovation starts and ends with people and requires the use of data to measure effectiveness and progress. Across both people and data, leaders must recognize patterns of behavior, mindsets, and output to continually refine the approach. Innovation is an iterative process that never ends. It requires both vision and perseverance to move into new operational and leadership modes.

In this highly interactive seminar you will hear from leading experts in innovation in public safety and healthcare, share your stories of success and struggles with innovation and leave with specific strategies to help your organization move forward. You will also collaborate with other participants to develop an innovation project. The session will culminate with a special “EMS Innovation Shark Tank” during which groups will present their innovation ideas to a panel of EMS sharks and try to convince them their ideas are worth the investment of time and resources it takes to take your organizations to the next level.

You will learn:

• How to encourage innovation in a stagnant organization
• How to develop and sustain a culture of innovation
• Concepts and take-home strategies that can be implemented immediately
• Tools and tricks to help you “sell” innovative ideas to your teams

Faculty for this seminar include Roxanne Shanks, MBA, a partner with Fitch & Associates and CEO of LifeFlight Eagle Air Medical Program in Kansas City, Missouri; Tom Judge, executive director and co-founder of LifeFlight of Maine; and Mike Taigman, MA, an expert in healthcare improvement strategies and the improvement guide for Firstwatch. They will be joined by a panel of EMS “Sharks,” including Matt Streger, JD, a partner at Keavney & Streger, an EMS law firm, who has also held executive roles in several EMS agencies; Ed Racht, MD, chief medical officer, Global Medical Response; and Rob Lawrence, former chief operating officer of Paramedics Plus in Alameda County, California, and the Richmond Ambulance Authority.

What if your largest payer announced today that your future funding will be based on certain quality measures? Well, it’s actually already happened. Under Emergency Triage, Treat and Transport (ET3) model, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has indicated that participating ambulance services will be eligible for bonus payments based on quality. Some state Medicaid officials have also requested example quality measures that could be used for a supplemental payment program. And the Academy of International Mobile Healthcare Integration recently published clinical, operational and financial performance measures that have been shared with external stakeholders such as the International City/County Management Association, America’s Health Insurance Plans and the National Association of Counties.

Want to know how your agency’s key performance metrics compare to some of industry’s highest performing EMS systems? Wondering how to evaluate and report key quality metrics for your system and benchmark your measures over time? This session will take a deep dive into these performance measures and provide participants with tools to generate, track, report, evaluate and improve quality metrics in your organization – all in an effort to help you prove value to payers.

As part of the session you will develop a custom take-home plan.

You will learn:

• How the key performance indicators in the AIMHI Benchmarking Report are generated and evaluated
• How to trend KPIs over time and use short cycle process changes to improve performance
• Strategies for leveraging measures to demonstrate and improve value
• How to create customized practical improvement plan for your service and community
• How to encourage and hold team members accountable for improved performance

This seminar features leaders from some of the nation’s highest performing EMS systems:

• Jim Pierson, President/COO of Medic Ambulance
• Jonathan Washko, MBA, Assistant Vice President of the Center of Emergency Medical Services at Northwell Health
• Rob Lawrence, Robert Lawrence Consulting, former COO of Richmond Ambulance Authority

Facilitating the session will be Matt Zavadsky, MS-HSA, president of the National Association of EMTs and chief strategic integration officer for Fort Worth’s MedStar Mobile Healthcare, where he has helped implement numerous innovative partnerships with healthcare stakeholders and payers.

This session is sponsored by the Academy of International Mobile Healthcare Integration.

One of the highlights of Pinnacle is our Annual EMS User Update Meeting. We focus on sharing cool new things we’ve built for our customers over the last year along with a preview of coming attractions. You’ll have the opportunity to add your ideas to our roadmap for the rest of 2021 and 2022. While the session is designed for our current customers, everyone is welcome. Please join us for all or part of our 3-hour high-speed hybrid update.

Live hosts: Mike Taigman and Terry Fitch

Presenters Zooming In:
Todd Stout, Debbie Gilligan, Silvia Verdugo, MD, EMT-P, Chris Carlson, Ph.D., Scott Kraetsch, and others.

High Level Agenda

• What’s happened over the last year?
• Amazing new ways to slice, dice, and visualize your data with IDV
• Where are all of my ambulances? New Hospital Transport Status Dashboard
• Clinical quality matters. What’s new with FirstPass?
• Dispatch matters. What’s new with Academy Analytics?
• Who needs a break? Live Workload Reports
• Making things easier for FirstWatch Administrators
• Are we in compliance? What’s new with OCU?
• Building High Adversity Resilience
• Keeping things secure
• Collaboration is fun
• Partnerships that matter

Open to all interested participants

After a fun, mind-expanding and energizing four days at Pinnacle, it can be challenging to sort through and make sense of all the new information and ideas you’ve absorbed. What long-held beliefs were up-ended? Which best practices do you want to implement right away?
Join Rob Lawrence, and Fitch & Associates partner Roxanne Peek, MBA, as they lead a robust conversation to help you answer these questions and design a strategy for implementing your favorite idea. To contribute to the real-time agenda for the session, visit firstwatch.net/pinnacle-wrap. We can’t wait to see you there and send you home ready to make a difference for your people, your organization and your community.