As the only national professional association for EMS practitioners, NAEMT has offered comments on the role of the federal government in the full continuum of emergency medical services and emergency and trauma care for adults and children - including medical 911 and emergency medical dispatch, prehospital emergency medical services (both ground and air), hospital-based emergency care and trauma care, and medical-related disaster preparedness.

Comments were solicited by the Federal Interagency Committee on Emergency Medical Services (FICEMS), which was created by law to help ensure coordination among federal agencies involved with state, local, tribal, or regional emergency medical services and 911 systems.

In a letter from NAEMT President Connie Meyer, NAEMT commented that it is not so important which agency is named the lead, but rather that (a) there BE a lead federal agency, (b) it be created at a sufficient level in the federal hierarchy to exercise the leadership that EMS needs – an Agency or Administration within a cabinet-level department, and (c) that it be given the necessary authority to cross organizational lines in an effort to bring focus and priority to federal EMS efforts.

Read NAEMT's full comments here.