South Georgia training program will prepare paramedics for more advanced care

Caption

Once it's built, the Living and Learning Community will house nursing students from Albany Technical College right across the street from Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, G.a.

Credit: Sofi Gratas/GPB News

As part of their licensure, Georgia paramedics are all required to learn basic medical care in order to stabilize patients for emergency transport. 

But patients in serious condition who need advanced care often rely on transport to higher-level hospitals in order to get the right treatment. That transport can take hours, due to Georgia’s scattered hospital and trauma network. 

• RELATED: Trauma care in Georgia is strained, and a rural review points to systemic failures

Thad Minick is an instructor at Albany Technical College and a longtime paramedic. 

“You need some advanced training to really safely take those patients from [point] A to a higher level of care,” Minick said. “Just to make sure that it's safe and they're being taken care of.”

Last year, the Georgia Department of Public Health’s Office of Emergency Medical Services announced it was working on developing standards for a new Critical Care license. Now the department says it intends to start issuing those licenses next year, though the rule supporting its implementation is still under review. 

Albany Technical College will be the first in the state to offer intensive Critical Care training that meets the state’s new standards, Minick said. The program will start this fall. 

Critical Care covers more advanced procedures than paramedics aren't always regularly expected to perform.  

“Currently, the level of skill on the ground transport services is just a little bit lacking in things like managing chest tubes, or advanced ventilator management,” Minick said. 

The program in Albany is scheduled to last 15 weeks with 300 hours of lab and clinical training in things like respiratory care and anesthesia. It will be offered twice a year at the college, and cohorts to start will be no larger than about 12 students. 

Albany Tech’s program isn’t the first Critical Care training available in the state -- there are online programs and others available in Augusta and Metro Atlanta. But it is the first designed alongside state stakeholders. 

“There were currently no programs out there, at least not geographically, close enough to meet the needs for the state to issue a license on that,” Minick said. “Our program was built to meet the needs that the state identified.” 

Kim Littleton with the Georgia EMS Association said paramedics often don’t have as many options to move their career forward with basic training. 

“Any additional training and education that our providers can get that will potentially open up career paths for them or be able to enhance their ability to work as an EMS provider, we're certainly in support of that,” Littleton said. 

Additional post-licensure skills can currently be offered by EMS agencies under the state’s guidance, but only if paramedics request them. 

Similarly, the critical care license will be an optional path, but one that Brent Rogers, vice president for Emergency Services at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, said the hospital would benefit from. 

“Graduates from this new program will fill a major void in our area,” Rogers said in a statement to GPB. “If we are able to add them at Phoebe, they would further bolster the elevation of care that has come with our trauma center designation.” 

Plus, critical care paramedics could help in the emergency room, intensive care unit and cardiovascular diagnosis units, Rogers said. 

According to data provided by Phoebe, the hospital has seen a nearly twofold increase in total patients admitted to its trauma unit since it was designated as a Level II trauma center in March both from air and on the ground transport.