MCHB Conference Webcasts
2005 EMSC Annual Grantee Meeting
April 12-13, 2005
JANE BALL: Okay. I know we're starting a new phase in EMSC, and that is asking all of the states to make an investment in being accountable for some very important aspects of the Emergency Medical Services System for Children. And I just wanted to make sure that all of you found the resources that were provided in the packet of presentation materials. At the very end of that packet you're going to find the specific performance measures, as well as some of the information from the beta test results. And this is going to be helpful to you in moving forward.
Okay. So as we begin implementing these new EMSC performance measures, it is a change in expectation, because in the past there have been a number of different priorities that you could decide to address in your programs. However, all of us have had a very similar goal in mind, and that is to improve the System of Emergency Care for Children. We've been doing it in very creative ways, we've been pulling people together to do that, but we haven't really had a mechanism to evaluate that process in the past, because we've never really, you know, gone through the steps of developing some uniform performance measures that every state grantee could use.
So that's the process that we've actually gone through in this last year and a half. And we really want to try to help you understand, you know, there is a new era of accountability for federal programs. I think you saw the experience that we had last year, when the program went through the EMSC part assessment, and we had some challenges. The program has had some really significant accomplishments over the last 20 years, and we really had some opportunities to demonstrate that we've made good progress with the outcome measures for the Government Performance and Results Act.
The process that we went through didn't really pay a whole lot of attention to that. But we're really trying to be prepared for the next time we have to go through that process. So we do have a responsibility to be accountable and to have everybody think about how they can provide documentation that they're making sequential improvements in pediatric emergency care systems.
In the state partnership grant guidance there will be information about this process and the expectations for those of you who have state partnership grants. I just want to go over a little bit of the history with you all, because this has been a process that we've been engaged in for more than two years and back when the natural resource center was putting together its contract proposal, we recognized a need to develop some resources with regard to evaluating the EMSC program. That's the time we partnered with the lieu we know group to actually start putting together a process so that we could have some evaluation measures for this program. It turned out to be very timely, because that was the time that we started seeing an increased awareness in accountability.
The process that we started nearly two years ago was to begin looking at all of the different things that we had done to try to measure the program, whether it was the five‑year plan objectives, whether it was some of the various projects that had been done and recommendations of those measures. And we sorted through piles and piles of paper to try to narrow down to some performance measures. We got to the point we had about 70 different possibilities.
We narrowed that down more, and we brought together a group of grantees as well as representatives of national organizations to help us narrow that scope down, and we actually identified about three or four measures that we thought were the best available, with the kind of resources we thought state grantees had to measure some aspect of the EMSC program continuum. So that was kind of like our first big step. Many of you participated in that process and then we reported out on that process at last year's grantee meeting, to start, you know, letting you know this is something that's coming; we didn't want it to be a surprise to you all.
So we did a lot of those introductions. And then the next part was actually doing the beta testing so that we could refine the performance measures and that we could find ways to actually give you tools to collect the information, because it doesn't do you any good if you have these performance measures and we don't give you common definitions and we don't give you tools that everybody can use so that we're collecting consistent uniform data from all of you. So that was really a major role for these beta tests. We really wanted to know what was available within the states, because it doesn't do any of us any good if we ask you to collect information that's unrealistic.
And you know we had to know that some of the states had this information. So we got a lot of information from this process that gave us challenges and opportunities.
And so that's really important for you to know, okay, we really have been doing this in a very focused manner. The fact that the program happened to have, you know, a national program evaluation, you know, the timing was, you know ‑‑ we were really kind of following the timing, but we're moving and we're making plans for the future at this point in time, because the next time this program's evaluated we really want to have some good data that we can share that shows that we have accomplishments and that we really are doing what this program is intended to do.
The National Resource Center and NEDARC both have a very active role in this process. We don't want you to think that we're asking you to do something where, you know, you don't have the support. It just so happens that the contract for the lieu we know group to help with the development of the process is within the National Resource Center and we're working very closely with Luwen, the folks in the resource center that are part of the technical assistance team have been very actively involved in this process.
We also have involved the technical assistance team from NEDARC in this process, because all of us needed to be educated about this process so that we'd be able to provide technical assistance to all of you. And we really wanted to be able to be in a position to give you the best information, guidance and help as you began transitioning to addressing a lot of these performance measures.
So we really want to make sure that you can move forward and address this. Here's what we want to give you in the way of some expectations. Okay. We're going to be putting this in as a requirement in the next state partnership competitive grant guidance. Okay? So those 42 states that are going to be submitting new grant applications this fall, sometime during year one, we're going to be expecting you to provide us with baseline data. This is not going to be required at the time that you submit that grant application. However, we do expect to provide you with the tools or the questionnaire or the specific information that you need so that you know at that point in time what data you will need to provide during year one. So you will have time after the grant is awarded to provide the information back sometime next year.
You know, most of you know that if everything works out okay we can award, you know, the grants. Usually it's around March 1st. So sometime next year, after you have a chance to get started and to do some work, we need to collect the baseline data. In particular, performance measure one and performance measure two are reportable performance measures. We need to give baseline data for these two performance measures, needs to be reported to HRSA, which then reports it to the Office of Management and Budget.
We don't have expectations that people are going to have achieved these performance measures. This is a five‑year measurement process. So what we're going to be asking you to do, in the grant application process, is to make a commitment to collect the information on an annual basis and provide it to us.
We're also going to be asking you to make an investment in working on those issues where you and your states see a need to make improvements so that we can show gradual steady progress across the country in meeting each of these performance measures.
So that's what we're asking about at this point in time. We're not asking you to jump through hoops or do something that's totally impossible. But we are helping to set the stage for what's going to be expected over the next five years. So we really want to see improvement and we want to demonstrate to the country and to congress and all of our families that we care for that this is a program that's being responsive and meeting those needs.
What I'm going to do is turn this over to Mike Ely and he's going to be talking about some of the stuff that the resource centers are going to make available.