2020 EMS10 Winner Profile: Los Angeles County (CA) Fire Department

The Los Angeles County (CA) Fire Department (LACoFD) has implemented ImageTrend Elite in just 60 days. In the one year since go-live, the department has already used ImageTrend Elite in innovative ways that have never seen before.

Within just a year’s time, LACoFD has pushed past the traditional roles of Elite, taking the product in directions never before attempted. The team of administrators—Battalion Chief Bryan Wells, Captain Robert Grasska, Yun Son Kim, Nicole Steeneken, Laura Vaca, Madeleine Surjani, and Trung Luu—with the help of the LACoFD Information Management Division team and SME group, deserve to be commended for their work to improve the safety of their citizens using ImageTrend Elite in such a groundbreaking, innovative manner.

After training and implementing National Fire Incident Reporting System NFIRS and emergency medical services (EMS) reporting for 180-lus stations and thousands of employees, the department met reporting requirements unlike any other area of the country.

Three ways LACoFD is using the Elite platform to greatly improve EMS delivery include the following:

1. The LACoFD’s EMS Bureau now conducts continuous quality improvement (CQI) in ways unlike other areas of the nation. In addition to patient care report (PCR) audits, the EMS bureau completes aggregate data analysis of CQI rules and conditions, showing percentages of protocol deviations based on encountered circumstances.
2. Within a month of go-live, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (DHS) conducted a major medical study, and LACoFD assisted this by adapting the CQI module to acquire special study information on more than 4,000 patients, allowing their DHS to acquire key data that may change EMS in their region or even nationwide.
3. The LACoFD Lifeguard system serves as beach patrol, basic or advanced life support patient care, and boat rescue. LACoFD, through use of the PCR and supplemental questions, implemented a way to document lifeguard statistics and thorough patient care reporting in a manner that involves transfers within and outside of the LACoFD agency.

With the above information, it is clear the LACoFD is using data to not only drive their EMS system but to also improve it. This data and the powerful analysis that comes with it allows the ability to share this data to not only improve EMS in Los Angeles County also the entire nationwide EMS system. As we see EMS protocols becoming more and more evidence-based, the importance and value of data increases each day.

From the days of the TV show Emergency!, LACoFD has helped drive EMS forward. Fifty years after this show, the same agency is using data collection and analysis to drive EMS forward for the next 50 years or more.

With these immense, forward movements in data collection, analysis, and use, it is clear that the LACoFD is well-deserving of a 2021 EMS 10 Innovation Award.