By Mark Milliron, NCEMSF Director at Large

This article originally appeared in
NCEMSF News, Volume 7, Issue 2.

How many campus based EMS organizations have suddenly ceased operations and disappeared after seemingly strong operations for many years. In the 10 year history of NCMESF we have seen several campus EMS organizations disband like this. One had been in service for 15 years and had become a well recognized student organization on campus. Another had been a service of a university’s public safety department for many years and was suddenly and permanently placed out of service. These were not “flash in the pan” programs that were started one year and gone the next due to lack of interest. They were well established programs with a solid history of service.

Does your EMS organization have the organizational foundation to remain strong and viable, not just from one year to the next, but for the long-term? Take a hard look at your organization and decide if it has what it takes to meet the challenges of the future.

Some organizations seem to be strong and active, but is that merely due to having a single charismatic leader? Who will take that person’s place when they are gone? Even if you have a system to develop new leaders, it is a risk to assume that one person can hold an organization together without a strong organizational foundation. This is what happened to the campus EMS organization with 15 years of service. Suddenly the leadership fell apart and there was no tangible organization underneath. Fifteen years of service had simply been passed down from one person to the next until it fell on a person who couldn’t keep it going.

It is not uncommon in campus EMS to have 50 members one year, and the next there is only one EMT and four or five First Responders left trying to cover all of the shifts. This happens when the organization is based on temporary leadership, popularly elected, with no long term continuity.

In other cases, where the campus EMS organization is not a student club but is affiliated with a campus health or public safety service, it can be at risk of budget cuts and changes in administration when new administrators do not have a background or good understanding of campus EMS needs. One long standing campus EMS service was disbanded due, for one reason, to the need for a new ambulance. The university simply was not willing to make the $80,000 cost of a new unit a budgetary priority. Consider your own survivability in these economic times when state legislatures are severely cutting back on allocations to schools, and the return on investment of school’s endowments is well under planned revenues. If your survivability depends on replacing a unit soon (keeping your office space, quarters, or anything else that costs your school something out of someone’s budget), are you depending only on the charisma of one of your members to make that happen?

Unlike most community EMS organizations, campus EMS experiences a high turnover rate of members and leaders. How can you provide for a strong organizational foundation with long term continuity in leadership with high member turnover rates? One solution is what many community EMS organizations have come to realize is successful. That is to develop a community advisory board from outside of your membership as community EMS has developed community boards of directors from outside of the EMS world.

A community advisory board can provide long term continuity and a solid organizational foundation that supports but transcends temporary student leadership. It can also bring outside experience and valuable contacts to support the organization. One of the biggest problems campus EMS organizations have is failure to understand the changing needs of the campus community and in being a dynamic organization to meet these changing needs.

In developing the membership of a community advisory board, you are looking for advocates for your EMS organization, but not necessarily people with direct EMS experience. In fact going outside of the world of EMS is critical in bringing together a diverse board. You are looking for people who can represent your organization’s interest in their worlds, and bring ideas on the needs of the community back to your organization. A diverse board might include your medical director and someone from the campus health service, a representative from public safety, a staff member from student affairs or residence life, a student representative from student government, a school development officer to help with fundraising ideas, a faculty member or administrator in continuing or adult education, an assistant athletic director or coach from the intercollegiate athletics office, an attorney, an influential officer from the local community EMS or fire service, an administrator or supervisor from your local hospital, someone from the local business community who is active in the local Chamber, and a C.P.A. who can help you with your finances.

Don’t settle for just anyone on your board. An administrative assistant from some campus office may be a great person who is really interested in EMS, but if they do not sit in on their office’s department head meetings and have a voice there, can this person really be an effective advocate for you? You want your board members to be leaders in their own areas, so that they can lend their influence to your cause and bring their needs and experiences to your organization. Think about who your customers are. If you provide services for athletic events (or if you are trying to break into that market) then you need an advocate from inside that system on your board.

A community advisory board can fill many roles for your campus EMS organization. They can help you understand when you need to change to adapt to new environments. They can be your advocate when changes are afoot at your school and in the local community. They can represent you on committees when your school or even local government is involved in strategic planning that may affect your services. They can help you with long term financial planning, fundraising, and provide business and legal advice. Basically a community advisory board can provide the organizational foundation for your campus EMS organization that can carry you through those times when the charisma of an individual simply isn’t enough to get by massive legislative funding cuts, a bad membership recruiting year, or disbanding in the face of being unable to come up with $80,000 for a new unit.