To better understand the direction this study should take, a group of EMS stakeholders from various agencies and locations in Georgia was gathered in February of 2017. The purpose of the EMS Workforce Study was explained, and the ensuing discussion centered on how best to go about gathering the data. It was suggested and ultimately decided that the best way to gather data on the current EMS workforce in Georgia was to first gather personnel rosters from each licensed EMS agency in Georgia, and compare the compiled rosters to the list of currently licensed EMS personnel in Georgia. A subsequent stakeholder discussion with the principal investigator, SORH, and SOEMS, in March of 2017 solidified the steps that would need to be taken to obtain this data and begin the analysis. Further stakeholder discussions with the Georgia Trauma Foundation (grant recipient), SORH, members of EMSAC (Emergency Medical Services Advisory Council), regional EMS Council members and agencies, and SOEMS personnel (Director, Deputy Director and Regional Program Directors) helped to define the initial questions that would need to be answered from the data obtained.
A total of 325 rosters were received, including 140 (43.1%) sent voluntarily by the services, and 185 (56.9%) that were extracted from SOEMS license packets. Some EMS Agencies had multiple rosters based on different markets, whereas other EMS Agencies sent only one roster for all their markets combined. The 185 rosters that were extracted from SOEMS license packets were extracted from the most recent packets available, which included 1 (one) from 2013, 11 from 2014, 64 from 2015, 77 from 2016, and 31 from 2017. Of the rosters that were received voluntarily from EMS agencies, 4 were received in March 2017, 73 in April 2017, 51 in May of 2017, and 12 in June of 2017.
Agencies that have multiple licenses (i.e. Ground Ambulance, Air Ambulance, Medical First Responder, and/or Neonatal) were only counted once. Of the 341 licensed EMS agencies in Georgia, only 7 agencies had no personnel roster data available, where the agency did not send their roster voluntarily, and there was no roster available from SOEMS in the agency’s most recent license packet. Six (6) of those agencies were in Region 10, and one in Region 3.
Rosters for agencies that did not classify medics as Full-Time, Part-Time, Volunteer or Other, were listed as Other. If they were listed as PRN, this was changed to Part-Time.
Data on Georgia counties, including land area and population estimates as of 7/1/2016, were obtained from the US Census Bureau, and categorized into EMS regions based on the public health regions in Georgia and rural/not rural based on data obtained from SORH.