Elevating the Voice of the Clinician

How can the National Registry ensure every voice connected to certification is heard at the highest level? In this episode of Registry Insider, host Bill Seifarth and Board Chair Dr. Scott Gilmore discuss the introduction of a new advisory group that creates a direct line of feedback to the Board of Directors before key decisions are made. This group reflects the full EMS community, including EMR, EMT, AEMT, and Paramedic, across both volunteer and career roles. It also includes educators, employers, and partner organizations who prepare, support, and rely on certified Clinicians every day. The result is a more informed and transparent process that ensures the perspectives of those closest to the work help guide the future of certification.

#NREMT #EMS #EMT #paramedic #podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:14

Welcome to the Registry Insider. I'm Bill Cyprus from the National Registry of EMTs. And joining me for today's episode is Dr. Scott Gilmore. He's the chair for the National Registry's Board of Directors. So, Scott, thanks for joining me for another episode. No problem. Thank you for having me. So in November, uh the Board of Directors passed a resolution. The Board of Directors for the National Registry passed a resolution to stand up an advisory group. So explain to our listeners and viewers what is the this thing called an advisory group, what's its purpose, and uh where are we in terms of kind of putting it together?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

So we sat down and did some introspective review of the organization, and we found that the board does not really have a direct conduit to have information given to them. And because of that, we said, hey, how can we do this? Well, why not develop an advisory group? And so the advisory group was what was put forth. It was passed, and it was a unanimous decision to pass it to the board because that's how important we feel that it is. And we have now gone through the public comments period, we've looked at all the comments, and now we're actually in the process of putting in place what we talked about doing. As far as like the advisory group itself, the composition, it's gonna be very varied. With some flexibility, too, hasn't he? I mean, there's gonna be flexibility within the number of people, etc. Uh, it is capped at a certain number, just because you know, it is a we can't have you know everybody in the country here, but you know, it's okay. So when we sat down, and you know, we've had this conversation, you and Mike McAvoy, the past chair who actually was the chair when he started doing all of this, and uh myself, we sat down and said, you know, what is the best composition for this board? And one of the points that I made, and and you agreed with, and so did Mike, was that anybody who is touched by our certification needs to have a voice among this group. So, because of that, obviously we're gonna have clinicians, and we broke it down even further. I don't want just paramedics, we need to make sure we have a good voice and from everybody. So we're looking for EMRs, we're looking for EMTs, we're looking for AMTs, and we're looking for paramedics. So we're actually gonna have representation on the advisory group, which we've never had before, which is powerful. Additionally, we sat down and said, oh, but we need to look at paid versus career. We need to look at educators who feed into and prepare people to sit for our test. We need to have, oh, the fire chiefs, we need to have the management association because they're the ones who employ our certificates to make sure that, oh, we're providing them the best clinician that we possibly can through our certification process. So, you know, it's it's been a lovely journey in that I'm very excited about it because we're able to do something great here that we've never had before.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Yeah, and it's to your to your point early on, this is an advisory group for the board of directors. It's not for you, right? Exactly, because we have separate advisory groups that that we use actually from a staff perspective to help us. Uh, but there's this, I think the greatest asset or attribute or benefit from this is that the board will get to hear the thoughts and reactions of its constituents, its uh stakeholders, its partners before it actually starts deliberation in some respects. So a more informed decision, which is a continuation of the the the theme of increased transparency at the national registry, where we have public comment period. Now we're gonna hear feedback, the board's gonna hear feedback before we actually start the deliberation.

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Or there's gonna be an avenue for someone to bring something to the board's attention that we hadn't even thought about.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Yes, yeah. So a lot of power with the with the advisory group that is um soon to be in place uh to kind of talk brass tacks about it. We are in the process of of uh soliciting uh resumes and CVs of different entities and organizations from across the country. Um, it is gonna be a very uh multidisciplinary, very representative group that will have a voice for the National Register Board of Directors to listen to.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

And the part I'm excited about the most is it is going to truly be a 360 view around certification. It's gonna be employers, it's going to be, as an example, IBSC is even going to have a seat on the advisory committee or advisory group, excuse me. And you might ask, why do we need another certification body sitting on the advisory group? Well, it's because they use our certification as the entry level for many of their certifications. So it plays a vital role in what they do also, and so it's another group that will tell us.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

So yeah, it is it is a great opportunity. It's um it's a situation where again the National Registry is continuing that spirit of transparency, and um, and we'll be able to keep reporting back to viewers and and listeners um the happenings uh from that advisory group as as we do from our board of directors that are posted uh summaries on our website.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Okay. Well, and the other thing too is once we do have this up in place, I encourage people to reach out to their organizations, associations to find out who the member is that sits on our advisory group so that they have a direct conduit to them so that they can get information to the board. Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

All right, Scott, thank you for joining me for yet another episode and and sharing with our listeners and viewers the um advisory group, which is advising the board of directors. So appreciate what you do. Thank you. Thank you for joining us as well, and as always, stay safe. Thank you for joining us for this episode. If you wouldn't mind, please click the like and subscribe buttons as well as the notifications so you can get notifications of upcoming episodes. Also, for the latest and greatest happenings of the National Registry, feel free to go to nrmt.org. Thank you very much, and again, stay safe.