The National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians (NREMT) Board of Directors first began using
Strategic Planning as a method to expend two important resources, personnel
time and financial abilities in the year 2000. The Board wanted a method to lead the NREMT through the next decade.
Using a facilitator familiar with health agencies and strategic planning, the
Board identified the NREMT customers, products and services, values, major
assets, barriers, and strategic directions. Members were free to interact
during the process, and everyone was able to critique a final draft prior to
submission and approval by the Board at the June 2001 meeting. At every annual
meeting in November, the Board reviews and updates the NREMT Strategic Plan.
This was accomplished in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006. This document
reflects an updated plan approved by the Board in November 2006.
The NREMT re-assessed its core values and reconfirmed
they will continue to advocate for quality patient care, exhibit leadership and
professionalism, and function with integrity. Valuing honesty and objectivity,
we will provide excellent customer service and operate in a staff friendly
environment and in an accessible, open and consensus-building manner. The NREMT
will be flexible and innovative to support the EMS profession and operate in a
fiscally responsible method.
Customers are an
important identifier for the NREMT. As a certification agency, the ultimate
beneficiary of the NREMT’s work is the public we serve. To accomplish this
mission, the plan identifies four major customer groups: EMTs who wish, or are
required to, be nationally certified; state EMS offices and military agencies
who grant authority to practice; educational institutions who provide EMS instruction;
and the employers who hire EMS professionals.
The NREMT provides a wide
variety of products and services to meet the needs of its customers. They
include: a registry for nationally certified EMTs, valid and reliable tests for
entry-level EMS responders, nationally consistent re-registration requirements
for First Responders and EMTs, information from testing and registration
databases, educational tools including self-assessments, technical assistance
to states and organizations, a newsletter, and sale items which identify the
registration status of NREMTs.
Understanding the current mission, values, customers,
products and services, and assets and barriers allowed the Board to identify
its strategic directions. Recognition that EMS is an evolving discipline, that
technology is under constant revision and that staffing and resources are
limited, the Board identified four major directions for 2001, modified them in
2002, and re-modified them and added additional strategic directions between
2003 – 2006. Other strategic directions for consideration over a five-year
period were reviewed also.
The November 2006 meeting
focused upon work accomplished throughout the year, particularly work centered
on the movement from pencil-paper examination administration to computer based
testing. The board reviewed the
continued use of the NREMT by states, psychometric issues of CBT, plans for
beta testing of CBT by the NREMT, revised standard setting processes, and
received a briefing on the important development of EMTNet.
The Board continued to
recognize the NREMT as the National EMS Certification agency described in the EMS Education Agenda for the Future: A
Systems Approach. Efforts that began in 2001 to move toward
the objective were met. A briefing regarding brochures, state visits, and other community relations’ progress was
provided. The NREMT research program reviewed 2006 accomplishments, presentations, abstracts, and manuscripts.
The Board then began work on the 2007 Strategic
Direction. Four directions were identified by the Board: continue current functions and planned enhancements to NREMTs
administration and operations, assess and enhance the NREMT as the National EMS
Certification, research competency, continued competency and workforce issues,
and explore the need and opportunity for use of NREMT processes on an
International basis.
The Board then used the
strategic planning process to identify Board committees and staff that would be
needed to accomplish these strategic directions. A report on progress of these directions will be made at the
November, 2007 Board meeting. During
the November meeting the Board will invite a facilitator to once again guide
the NREMT through the Strategic Planning process to help guide NREMT
intermediate and long range planning.
