Honoring EMS Week 2024
Bridge is thrilled to celebrate EMS Week 2024 and highlight the tremendous work our EMS Bridge program is doing to prevent overdose deaths by partnering with emergency medical services (EMS) agencies in California and across the nation to make life-saving addiction care more accessible.
This year’s EMS Week theme is “Honoring our past. Forging our future.” In this spirit, we honor the role EMS professionals have long played in responding to patients in crisis due to overdose and withdrawal symptoms, saving the lives of countless individuals. We are forging a future in which EMS professionals everywhere can expand their scope of practice to implement overdose prevention and treatment in the pre-hospital setting by adopting the EMS Bridge model.
OUR PAST
EMS Bridge launched in the summer of 2020 with funding from the CARESTAR Foundation to engage EMS agencies and 911 transport providers in partnership with public health departments. With State Opioid Response funds from the California Department of Health Care Services and in collaboration with the Sierra Health Foundation and the California Paramedic Foundation, we have grown from a successful pilot project in Contra Costa County to support Local Emergency Medical Services Agencies (LEMSAs) in 19 California counties and share our model with a national audience. Read more about our impact here.
OUR FUTURE
Our goal is for all EMS agencies in California to adopt our model by 2026. We provide training, technical assistance, and resources to support agencies as well as individual EMS professionals and the communities they serve. Check out our resources and connect with us to bring EMS Bridge to your community.
“Emergency medical responders have a tremendous opportunity to prevent overdose deaths. EMS Bridge is working with EMS agencies across the nation to make it possible for paramedics to initiate life-saving addiction treatment in the field and prevent future overdoses. Thank you to the EMS professionals joining with us to make a difference in patients’ lives!”
– Vanessa Lara, EMS Bridge Program Manager
