Dwayne Aalseth

Happy New Year! Hope your Holiday was bright, and Santa brought you what you wanted. The AEMTA will be hitting the ground running for you, our members. We have a few legislative issues we are working on, Spring Fling in March, new memberships, and bylaw proposal changes among other things.

Spring Fling is headed our way quickly. It will be held at Arkansas State University in Monticello. Penny Russell is working on some great speakers and entertainment. The full agenda with speakers, vendors, and sponsors is available on the Spring Fling website. Our contract hotel will be the Holiday Inn Express, fully remodeled and a hot breakfast should make a great stay. They will be providing a room for a meet and greet social Friday night. This will be a BYOB event with no open marked containers allowed by law. Cups will be provided by EASI ambulance and you may store your drinks in a cooler. So make your plans now, and come join the fun.

You may have heard that the AEMTA voted to give a one year membership to all Licensed EMS Providers (EMSP) in the state. And some may have some questions as to why we did this? Continued

Dwayne Aalseth

As this year ends, so does our current administration. Come January 1, your newly elected officers will take over. As President of the new administration I would like to thank Keith Edmonds and his past board for their two years of hard work and dedication. We face many new challenges in the next two years, but cannot forget the current ones we face. We as an association will continue to support Keith in the feats that he was unable to accomplish during his term.

We have several new and exciting things planned this year, and as members I hope you take advantage of them and get more involved. I encourage you to attend the board meetings to give us your feedback and ideas. The bi-monthly Board meetings will be held the 2nd Tuesday of each odd month (January 10th, May 8th, July 10th, September 11th and November 13th) at the Freeway Medical Building Section of EMS in Little Rock Arkansas at 9 am. Our two annual meetings will be at Spring Fling, March 10, and Conference, August 3, with times to be announced.

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Keith Edmonds, AEMTA President

Summer has arrived!!  It seems that Arkansas now only faces two seasons, winter and summer and nowhere can we locate spring and fall.  With the beginning of our summer months comes that time that we all are anxiously awaiting, CONFERENCE 2011!!

I am excited about the offerings that will be available this year at our annual South Central Regional EMS Conference held at the Hot Springs Convention Center on August 3 thru 7.  Many new lectures and lecturers will be waiting your arrival this year in order to better achieve the goals of the AEMTA, which is to provide you, the member with the educational opportunities that you have asked for in previous years.  I understand that there will actually be a leadership tract this year at conference to assist and provide information to the leaders of Arkansas EMS while building strength in those we look to for guidance.

I certainly hope to see you there and shake your hand or hug your neck.  I honestly appreciate each and every member for your support over the past year and a half while I have enjoyed seeing and meeting new faces along the way.

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Keith Edmonds, AEMTA President

What a wonderful 2010 South Central Regional EMS Conference we enjoyed this year. My utmost respect and appreciation to everyone involved in putting together such a great event. I know that each person involved in this event put a lot of free time as well as great efforts in seeing that each EMS Professional had the opportunity to come together and learn new and innovative ideas as well as brush up on some of the information that may have been stuck in the back of our minds. We also had the opportunity to rub shoulders and hug necks of those of our family that we haven’t had the opportunity to see in the past year as well as talk the streets with our comrades in arms.

I certainly wish that I could thank each person, ambulance service or anyone involved with our annual EMS Conference. The dedication that all of you have shown in making a difference in some one’s life is unremarkable and exemplary! We all know that it would take an enormous amount of time to make that happen but you know who you are and how much I do appreciate your efforts.

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Keith Edmonds

As everyone is aware, the Arkansas General Assembly is in session to approve budgets for the State of Arkansas. The Session began on February 5, 2010 and the only decisions to be made this year are budgetary decisions.

The Arkansas EMS Profession was hit hard with budget cuts at the end of the 2009 fiscal year costing $5,000,000 to our Profession that was set aside at the beginning of the Trauma Funding to be dispersed among all EMS services in Arkansas for preparation of the Trauma System. This money was set aside in the budget under Category B subsection 1, which means that it is not guaranteed to be funded. All Category A budgets were funded, allowing for several grants to be made available to our EMS services and educational facilities.

We, as EMS Professionals, are very aware that all money is tight with the current economical situations that are being faced each day. EMS will see several of these situations arising in the next year even more so than we have in the past with the cuts in Medicare reimbursements.

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Keith Edmonds

Another year has come and gone bringing several events throughout 2009.  We have all laughed a little and cried a little, yet we have all been there for each other.  What a great family I am a part of!

2009 has seen several firsts for Arkansas EMS.  We have successfully placed a red letter license in over 50 percent of our professionals with the remaining 50 percent to be issued by the end of March.   Great strides have been made in beginning our Trauma System in Arkansas which has been worked on for many years by many dedicated medical professionals.  We have seen new equipment, rules and regulations and several newly licensed EMT’s and Paramedics in the back of our trucks and on the streets of our great state.  My congratulations and thanks to all of those that have worked so hard to progress our profession to the point it is today.

We have been saddened by the loss of several loved ones and partners in EMS in 2009.  Familiar faces that we are so used to seeing as they work and play in EMS will no longer be there smiling and laughing with us.  We lost a great educator in our state with Jon McMahan – we will all miss his quirks and smiles at conference each year.  We also lost a tremendous leader within our state EMS system with the passing of David Taylor, Sr.  Anyone in the state of Arkansas carries a part of David with them.  Take a look at your license or certification and see what name has signed it.  (“Thanks Buddy!”)  David loved the professionals in our business like brothers and sisters.  He also had a passion for success in our trauma system, licensure and our new rules and regulations.  It was his desire to move Arkansas to the top in the nation with all the improvements we have made.  David will be missed along with each of those we have lost in 2009, yet they will never be forgotten!  It is our duty to see their legacy and passion for our business is carried on and never forgotten.  We need to gather the belts and purse strings, put our big boy/girl britches on and get to work!!  We should refuse to let those things that our friends, partners, leaders and family members have worked so hard on fall behind.

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