SMS4EMS

Project Overview

The Safety Management Systems training for Emergency Medical Services (SMS4EMS) is an Erasmus+ funded Partnership project that is running over 24 months from November 2021 to October 2023. The SMS4EMS project aims to enhance safety, hazard and risk management to improve safety performance for EMS professionals, patients, and the public. The project will engage with project partners and associate partners from the EMS sector, academia, education, training and research. Collectively, this cooperation partnership will co-design and co-create safety management systems training that will support improvements to safety performance in the emergency medical services sector.

The SMS4EMS project will undertake research into SMS needs in EMS; profile the competence requirements; design, develop and deliver SMS training; and evaluate the training content. In addition, SMS4EMS will undertake dissemination activities through Multiplier Events that will share the Project Results with target groups (EMS, health education and training, and research organisations) and relevant stakeholders. SMS4EMS will also disseminate Project Results through conference presentations, professional and academic journal publications and web based activities.

An article on the SMS4EMS project can be accessed here.

Background to Research

The Safety Management Systems training for Emergency Medical Services (SMS4EMS) project will design, develop and deliver a SMS training solution to the EMS sector. The need for the SMS4EMS project has been identified by EMS organisations who recognise the need for safety, hazard and risk management for their personnel, the patients they serve, and as part of civil protection for the public and wider society. In addition, the need for the SMS4EMS project is driven by the recent Health Organisation (WHO) Global Patient Safety Action Plan (GPSAP) 2021-2030 that calls for improvements to safety in health services and posits a system wide approach to manage safety.

SMS4EMS Project Results

The SMS4EMS project will deliver four related Project Results:

PR1: Safety Management Systems Capability Analysis and Gaps in Emergency Medical Services
PR2: Competency Framework and Learning Objectives for Safety Management Systems in Emergency Medical Services Organisations
PR3: Safety Management Systems Training Design and Development for Emergency Medical Services
PR4: Safety Management Systems Training for Emergency Medical Services Evaluation

SMS4EMS will provide an off the shelf training programme (Project Result 3) that can be used to develop the competence needed to develop a safety management system (SMS) in emergency medical services (EMS). However, collectively each of the Project Results offers a comprehensive suite of methods and tools that can be used to: inform the existing capabilities, gaps and potential for a SMS in EMS (Project Result 1); establish the competence framework and learning objectives of a SMS for EMS (Project Result 2); design and develop SMS training to be localised within an EMS (Project Result 3); and provide an evaluation model to complete the training and development cycle Project Result 4).

Details of an upcoming event.