13th Annual EMS Research Day

The 13^th Annual EMS Research Day was held on Thursday, October 14^th, 2021. There were 190 paramedics, physicians, educators, management and others with a keen interest in EMS research were in attendance. The Keynote Speaker was Dr. Walter Tavares. Dr. Walter Tavares has been in Paramedicine for over 20 years. He has served as a clinician, educator and researcher, holding numerous provincial, national, and international leadership and scholarly roles and collaborations, resulting in a number of advances in the system.

Fifteen studies were presented and the awards went to: Dr. Alix Carter for the Top Research Award with “Rurality and Frailty: What are the Impacts, Benefits and Outcomes of Paramedic Palliative Care?” and J. Chris Smith for the Ron Stewart Top Paramedic Research Award with “Effect of COVID-19 on the Operational Realities of the Non-urban Canadian Paramedic.”

12th Annual EMS Research Day

in conjunction with the Dalhousie University, Department of Emergency Medicine

East Coast Emergency Medicine Research Series (Online)
October 27th, 2020

The 12^th Annual EMS Research Day was held on Tuesday, October 27^th, 2020. There were 178 paramedics, physicians, educators, management and others with a keen interest in EMS research were in attendance. The Keynote Speaker was John Taplin, ACP, BA (ECONOMICS), MSC. An Advanced Care Paramedic with Alberta Health Services EMS, Research Analyst in the Health Technology Assessment Unit at O’Brien Institute for Public Health. John Taplin has his MSC in Community Health Sciences, specializing in health economics at University of Calgary. The topic for the Dr. Edward J Cain Distinguished Scholar Keynote was “Health Economics and EMS: Evaluating Effectiveness.”

Eleven studies were presented and the awards went to: Dr. Alix Carter for the Top Research Award with “Paramedics providing palliative care at home program associated with increase in days at home and home deaths: a pre-post implementation analysis” and J. Chris Smith for the Ron Stewart Top Paramedic Research Award with “Leveraging paramedic data for temporal monitoring and modelling of opioid and other intoxicant use.”

11^th Annual EMS Research Day

The 11^th Annual EMS Research Day was held on Tuesday, October 29^th, 2019. Over 100 paramedics, physicians, educators, management and others with a keen interest in EMS research were in attendance. The Keynote Speaker was Ian Drennan. Ian Drennan is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Medical Science, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto and the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St. Michael’s Hospital completing a collaborative program in resuscitation sciences. He works as an advanced care paramedic with York Region Paramedic Services and an instructor with Sunnybrook Centre for Prehospital Medicine. Ian also holds a part-time faculty position in the health sciences department at Georgian College.

Fourteen studies were presented and the awards went to: Dr. Alix Carter for the Top Research Award with “Essential elements to implementing the Paramedics Providing Palliative Care at Home Program: An application of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR).” and William McQuaid for the Ron Stewart Top Paramedic Research Award with “Paramedic Interventions and Adverse Patient Events During Prolonged Interfacility Ground Transport in a Pharmacoinvasive Model of STEMI Care.” The “People’s Choice Award” went to Lyon Kengis, for his poster entitled “Evaluating paramedics comfort, confidence, and cultural competency in providing care to trans populations in a provincial ambulance system.”

10^th Annual EMS Research Day

The 10^th Annual EMS Research Day was held on Tuesday, October 30^th, 2018. Approximately 110 paramedics, physicians, educators, management and others with a keen interest in EMS research were in attendance from all over Canada. The Keynote Speaker was Dr. Blair Bigham. Dr. Bigham is an award-winning journalist, scientist, paramedic and resident emergency physician based in Toronto. He was a Global Journalism Fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Associate Scientist at St Michael’s Hospital. His work has appeared in the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, the New England Journal of Medicine and the Canadian Medical Association Journal, amongst others, and he frequently appears on CBC Radio.

Twelve studies were presented and the awards went to: Mengyu Li for the Top Research Award with “Determining Ambulance Destinations in the Presence of Offload Delay Using a Markov Decision Process” and Lyon Kengis for the Ron Stewart Top Paramedic Research Award with “Evaluating Paramedic Comfort, Confidence, and Cultural Competency in Providing Care to Trans Populations in a Provincial Ambulance System”.

The “People’s Choice Award” which was given out for the best research poster on display. Jennifer Greene won the “Prehospital sepsis identification on the impact on time to definitive care protocol.”

This year marked the 10^th anniversary of the EMS Research Day!

History

In 2009, the Division of EMS hosted its first annual research day. It is now held at the end of October, in the Royal Bank Theatre at the Halifax Infirmary building of the QEII Health Sciences Centre. The day is action packed with a relevant EMS keynote speaker and scientific presentations of EMS, prehospital and paramedic research.

The 6^th Annual EMS Research Day was held on Tues, Oct 21^st 2014 in the Royal Bank Theatre of the Halifax Infirmary Bldg of the QEII Health Sciences Centre. Over 85 paramedics, physicians, management and others with an interest in EMS research were in attendance from all over Canada. The Keynote Speaker was Lawrence Brown PhD, MPH, TM, an independent research design and data analysis consultant in Austin, Texas, USA, and an Adjunct Associate Professor with the Mount Isa Centre for Rural and Remote Health at James Cook University, Australia.

Twelve studies were presented and the awards went to: Justin Mausz for the Top Research Award with “Exploring the Role of Hospital-Based Paramedic Education” and Phil Stewart for the Ron Stewart Top Paramedic Research Award with “The Feasibility of Monitoring the Temperature of Medication Storage in a Ground Ambulance: A Pilot Study”.

In conjunction with EMS Research Day, we also held two related events on Oct 20^th 2014: a Paramedic Journal Club’s (topic was Transport Outcomes), and a Pitch Your Proposal event that had eight potential research ideas put forward for discussion.

Keynote Speakers and award winners from previous years: