Saturday, October 5, 2024
10/5/2024
The “Increasing the capacity for Trauma Informed EMS in Alaska’s rural Copper River Region” project seeks to 1. Significantly increase the training of local EMS personnel focused on Trauma Informed Care and recovery based treatment of mental health and substance use disorders in emergency situations; 2. Increase by 40 percent the number of active local paramedics serving the region; 3. Increase by 50 percent the number of active local AK Certified EMS Instructors serving the region; 4. Recruit five additional EMS personnel into local service actively responding to medical emergencies throughout the region; 5. Create and proactively distribute a comprehensive resource manual for the region’s EMS personnel with procedures, guidelines, information and a training curriculum focused on warm hand-offs, referrals to recovery based care, local peer support resources, opioid overdose reversal, connecting appropriate individuals to SUD treatment, data reporting of emergency responses to individuals experiencing an opioid overdose, trauma informed care, and motivational interviewing. The project will focus on training active EMS personnel in Motivational Interviewing, Trauma Informed Care, Nonviolent Crisis Intervention Trauma Training, and Mental Health First Aid in addition to traditional EMS certification and recertification courses. By the end of the project period, the unduplicated number of people trained will be no less than 55 with an estimated 35 to be trained in year one and 20 additional unduplicated people in year two of the project period. The project’s scope will include all local EMS personnel to include the region’s FT Paid Ambulance crew, volunteer first responders, and EMS Certified personnel serving in various capacities such as Mobile Integrated Healthcare, Community Health Aids, and Village Public Safety Officers. In the rural Copper River region, EMS personnel serve an area greater than the state of West Virginia with a total population of around 2,600 residents. However, the region’s infrastructure, including EMS resources, are strained annually by a dramatic influx of nearly 100,000 visitors to the region during the short but intense three months of summer largely due to tourism and fishing. The project will serve all of the region’s residents and visitors. The racial demographics of the region’s 2,600+ residents are primarily composed of Alaska Native (25 percent) and Caucasian (60 percent) with no other single ethnic group consisting of more than 3 percent of the total resident population. There are also a significant number of Veterans living in the Copper River region at 15.4 percent of residents, and more than one-third of residents are greater than 55 years old. Major health problems include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, hypertension, various cancers, poor nutrition, edentulism, substance abuse (e.g., alcoholism, methamphetamine, and a growing OUD challenge, including prescription drug abuse, heroin, and fentanyl), STIs, and orthopedics. Barriers to health care access include poverty, high rates of uninsured residents, the region’s very rural frontier Alaska location, extreme weather conditions and lack of public transportation. The region has no hospital, Emergency Room, specialty care, or after-hours medical care within a 140-220 mile radius. On average, local EMS personnel respond to 380 emergency dispatches annually. The entire region is served by only one centrally located Full-Time ambulance crew and small groups of volunteer first responders. More than 50 percent of the region’s population lives greater than 30 miles from the region’s only ambulance.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
