Brian Maguire is a visiting assistant professor and director of distance learning in the Department of Emergency Health Services.
On the Front Lines of Emergency Response
When faced with a medical emergency, the last thing most of us think about is the potential dangers for the medical personnel who respond to our call for help. An innovative new study, led by UMBCs Brian Maguire, shows that emergency medical services providers face a number of unexpected risks every day.
Maguire, a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Health Services, took on the project after finding that there were no existing statistics on occupational safety among EMS personnel. There was no database to document job-related incidents of death, injury or illness for EMS workers, says Maguire. We had to collect all the data from various state and local agencies and create our own database to analyze the long-term trends within the collection of isolated incidents.
While Maguires study is ongoing, Maguire and his colleagues have released the first findings of their study, which report the occupational fatality rate among EMS providers, in the December issue of the Annals of Emergency Medicine. Based on the data in their study, Maguire estimates that the occupational fatality rate for EMS professionals is comparable to that of police officers and firefighters. Transportation incidents account for the largest portion of these work-related deaths; assaults are also a common cause of occupational fatalities among emergency medical responders.
As surprisingly high as these fatality rates may seem, Maguire says that these estimates are conservative. We are often working with only small amounts of information, explains Maguire, We can usually only document cases that connect illness or injury to a specific event, which means that, at the very least, were certain to have missed any number of long-term health problems that might not be apparent immediately. Ultimately, Maguire and his colleagues hope that their efforts to collect data on the number of work-related illnesses and injuries for EMS providers will result in a comprehensive evaluation of occupational safety within the profession.
In the meantime, Maguires work is certain to have significant impact on the next generation of emergency responders. Maguire also serves as EHSs director of distance learning and oversees the departments innovative online Management Studies masters degree. Now in its fifth year, it was UMBCs first distance education program. Approximately 70 students are enrolled; many are already active in various fields of emergency medical services management across the United States and abroad.
