Trauma Extrication
October 29, 2008
WEST LIFE
Portals/43/2008-10-29-11A-EMSacad.pdf
Just What The Doctor Ordered
Polaris Career Center and EMS Academy
March, 2006
By CARI HINKLE
As a career-technical school, Polaris Career Center has always had one foot in the business world. Its latest endeavor is a partnership with the Cleveland Clinic Western Region and its new EMS Academy. Together, they developed the Emergency Medical Technician program. Read the full article...
New Training Academy Prepares EMT's for Field
July 14, 2005
By DAVID PLATA
Staff Writer
It's the best of both worlds, according to Cleveland EMS Commissioner Edward Eckart, referring to training in the field and at the new Cleveland Clinic Western Region EMS Academy, dedicated this week.
"It's one thing if an instructor is standing up there talking and saying 'This is a picture of the heart and this is what's going to happen' — it's another thing if the guy's laying there with a gunshot wound in the street at 4 o'clock in the morning with 500 people yelling at you," he said. "We want to be able to do that to make sure that translation is being made."
While the field side of the equation remains unchanged, the classroom part has taken a leap into the future with the EMS Academy, now in business on the second floor of a former Ohio Bell facility at 15531 Lorain Ave. The academy actually started a year ago at Fairview Hospital, but is now accredited to operate on its own.
Fred DeGrandis, president and CEO of the Clinic's Western Region, which consists of Fairview, Lakewood and Lutheran hospitals, said the new facility will provide top-level training.
"The high-quality education that'll be made available here for EMS providers across the West Side of Cleveland and throughout the Greater Cleveland community is really second to none," he said.
In addition, he said, with the scarcity of nurses across the country, highly trained paramedics can be more integrated into hospital settings.
June 6 2005
Emerging emergency education
EMS Academy develops new training divisions, gains state accreditation
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EMS photo
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Rick Moskalski (right), an instructor with the EMS Academy, goes over parts of the program's drug training with Tom Phillips (left) of the Streetsboro Fire Department.
Photo credit: JANINE BENTIVEGNA
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By SHANNON MORTLAND
Pig hearts, lungs and tracheas might sound gross to some, but they are an effective way to teach, and Dan Zezena is betting it will help boost business.
Using pig organs in the classroom is just one of the ways the EMS Academy, which is part of the Cleveland Clinic’s Western Region, plans to become a training site for emergency medical technicians (EMTs) that offers cutting-edge programs, said Mr. Zezena, the academy’s director.
“The idea behind EMS training was always to improve relationships between the fire departments and the hospitals,” he said. “We wanted to take this EMS training to another level.”
The academy has developed three new divisions — initial EMS education, critical care education, and medical and corporate training — and courses for them will be launched in the coming months, Mr. Zezena said.
Created a year ago with about $300,000 in seed money from the Clinic, the academy was permitted to provide only continuing education before receiving its state accreditation two weeks ago. But that restriction didn’t stop the academy from working on partnerships with the University of Akron, Youngstown State University and Polaris Career Center to develop training for those interested in EMT careers or for EMTs who need continuing education to maintain their certification, Mr. Zezena said.
The partnership with Polaris in Middleburg Heights will include a one-year program for high school seniors. Students will study three days a week at Polaris and two days a week at the academy, which moved into a new location at 15531 Lorain Ave. in Cleveland two weeks ago, said Deborah Headman, associate principal at Polaris.
Students in that program can qualify to become basic EMTs when they turn 18 and can graduate from high school, Mr. Zezena said. Credit for the courses also can be counted toward a bachelor’s degree.
“We’re getting them early and starting to point them in the right direction” to pursue EMT careers, he said.
Innovation valued
Those students could go on to Youngstown State, which is working with the academy to develop a bachelor of science degree in allied health management. Courses taken at the academy would count toward this degree, Mr. Zezena said.
But EMTs won’t be the only focus for the academy. A corporate training program now is being developed, starting with a pending deal with the University of Akron Training Center for Fire and Hazardous Materials, Mr. Zezena said.
Under the partnership, the two centers together would market their various health and safety programs to businesses, said Phil McLean, industrial response training coordinator at the Akron center. What one center couldn’t provide, the other could, he said. Officials at Akron and the Clinic still must approve the deal.
Even with the new programs, a large part of the academy’s revenues still will come from continuing education, Mr. Zezena said.
The academy is lining up instructors from across the country to come to Cleveland to teach new courses that haven’t yet been offered here, he said. For example, he’s considering a course that teaches EMTs how to respond to an auto accident that involves hybrid cars, which have electricity running through them.
The academy’s success depends on such innovative courses, since fire departments can receive free, lecture-based continuing education courses from local hospitals, Mr. Zezena said.
Pig out
Edward Eckart, commissioner of Cleveland EMS, a division of the Cleveland Department of Public Safety, said the academy’s courses are worth the money because they’re “way ahead of the curve, and they’re real innovative in getting (information) across to the employees.”
Students of the academy can log online anywhere and access lectures, take tests or converse with a professor, Mr. Eckart said.
“For years, continuing education was always that you went into a classroom for several hours to listen to a lecture,” Mr. Eckart said. He said the EMS Academy “is bringing in a lot of the state-of-the-art technology that the medical community has been using for several years, and bringing it into the pre-hospital community.”
One particular program that he favors is allowing seasoned paramedics to practice on pig body parts, a technique usually reserved for initial paramedic training. He said it helps paramedics brush up on their skills or learn new ones.
Cleveland EMS, which goes on about 80,000 emergency runs a year, just entered into a three-year deal for the academy to provide continuing education classes for its 300 employees, Mr. Eckart said.
Other emergency services around the country also are noticing the academy, Mr. Zezena said, noting that his instructors already have taught courses at a fire department in Alaska and at the U.S. Army School of Aviation Medicine in Fort Rucker, Ala.
May 25 2005
EMS Academy Achieves State of Ohio Accreditation – The EMS Academy of the CCHS – Western Region continues to make significant progress in establishing itself as a local, regional and national resource in EMS training. The State of Ohio officially informed the EMS Academy that it was granted a full training accreditation from the State of Ohio. At the Fairview/Lutheran Board of Trustees meeting held on May 18, EMS Academy Director Dan Zezena provided an overview of the Academy to members of the Board of Trustees. The EMS Academy has located to its new home in the Fairview West Park Building at 15531 Lorain Avenue. The state-of-the-art education center includes three integrated classrooms, four laboratories and a computer lab with 30 computers. There also has been an investment in the use of a Blackboard web-based learning system to augment the students’ educational opportunities beyond the classroom setting. The EMS Academy will also use the new Castele Learning Center at Lutheran Hospital for educational activities. This effort advances one of our 2005 Goals and Priorities to assure our organization’s learning focus and orientation.
March 21 2005
February 2005 EMS Activity Set Records – EMS runs to CCHS – Western Region hospitals reflected the largest increases ever based on a comparison to prior year monthly totals. Fairview Hospital EMS visits were up 36% (778 squad runs); Lakewood Hospital recorded a 26% increase (685 squad runs) and Lutheran Hospital EMS visits were up 56% (477 squad runs). This activity reflects a growing partnership with EMS providers and great efforts by ED staffs at each CCHS – Western Region hospital and the likewise great work accomplished by our EMS coordinators.
March 14 2005
EMS Academy Making Great Progress – The EMS Academy of the Cleveland Clinic Health System – Western Region is still less than one year old, but is already making significant progress in establishing itself as a local, regional and national resource in EMS training. On February 28 EMS Academy Director Dan Zezena provided an overview of the Academy to members of the Fairview Hospital Community Advisory Committee. Since opening in May 2004, the Academy has partnered with the resources of the CCHS – Western Region hospitals to provide initial training for EMS students, continuing education for EMS professionals and certified intensive care paramedic training for paramedics seeking to advance their careers to the critical care level. Recent agreements include training partnerships with the Polaris Career Center, the City of Cleveland Emergency Medical Service, the U.S. Army School of Aviation Medicine, the University of Akron, Youngstown State University, Aeromed International of Anchorage, Alaska, as well as pre-hospital education programs for local fire departments and WESHARE. The EMS Academy will move this spring from its temporary “shell space” at Fairview Hospital to the second floor of the Fairview West Park Building at 15100 Lorain Avenue.
October 21, 2004
Cleveland EMS /CCHS - Western Region Graduates First Paramedic Class -- More than 120 people attended the graduation ceremony of 19 members of the Paramedic Class of 2004 at Fairview Hospital on Thursday, October 21. The class is the result of the recent partnership between Cleveland EMS and the CCHS -- Western Region's EMS Academy. Daniel Zezena, Jr., director of the EMS Academy, hosted the ceremonies while Cleveland EMS Commissioner Edward J. Eckart, Jr., delivered the keynote address. Jack Gustin, Western Region VP of Operations and a former paramedic, provided a glimpse as to how the paramedic profession has changed in the past 25 years. While much of the technologies have changed, Dr. Tom Collins, medical director of Cleveland EMS, told the crowd that the paramedics' professional attributes – caring, empathy and dedication – will never be replaced. The new graduates must complete one additional hurdle in coming weeks as they ready for their National Registry written and skills testing. The Western Region's EMS Academy, a community-wide training center for pre- hospital care, continues to develop formal training programs for future paramedic/EMS staff, as well as develop ongoing training programs for existing staff.