| One of the pillars of emergency and trauma care in the United States is Emergency Medical Services (EMS). The EMS workforce, numbering an estimated 669,278, is responsible for providing lifesaving treatment and transport to over 30 million patients per year. In 2006, the Institutes of Medicine published a report Emergency Medical Services At the Crossroads. The authors stated there was a lack of clinical evidence and research to support the care currently being provided which can be traced to national training and credentialing standards. Furthermore, they advocated for higher quality standards in EMS education and consistency both at the state and national level. In addition, they explicitly recommended that states require national accreditation of paramedic education programs. Currently, Emergency Medical Services is the only known health care profession that does not require national accreditation of its programs in order for the graduate to practice clinically. The purpose of this research was to fill a significant gap in the literature as it relates to the study of paramedic educational programs. Further the study described the distribution of organizational effectiveness in the population of accredited (N=243) and (N=843) non-accredited programs. Hypotheses were tested concerning the relationship of organizational effectiveness to specific program characteristics including accreditation status, size, and composition of the faculty. Analysis of organizational effectiveness based on the work of Cameron (1978a, b) considered overall effectiveness as well as each of the nine-sub dimensions of organizational effectiveness. With respect to accreditation status, the findings favor the rejection of the null hypothesis in favor of the alternative hypothesis that accredited paramedic programs are more effective. The effects of higher faculty education are counter-intuitive. Faculty with graduate degrees are less likely to participate in community affairs or to socialize with colleagues. The analysis of enrollment suggests that larger paramedic program attract better prepared students and better resources compared with smaller programs. These schools get more funding and have somewhat more satisfied faculty. Variance, however, is linked to organizational health which remains problematic for accurate interpretation and application. Numerous respondents did not answer the questions related to this scale therefore contributing to low levels of reliability in the survey for the dimension of organizational health. This finding supports the conclusion reached by other researchers who have studied organizational effectiveness. |
