PROBLEM IDENTIFICATION
Continuing education for emergency medical technicians (EMTs) in North Dakota is necessary to maintain skill proficiency beyond the original training. This is particularly important for emergency medical services (EMS) providers in areas where the volume of services is low, but also in high volume service areas, to minimize the development of shortcuts that may compromise care quality. Because of substantial time commitments on the part of EMS personnel, and the fact that 95 percent of technicians are volunteer, continuing education training must be highly accessible and eliminate redundant lesson preparation activity.

Also important is the timely dissemination of information on current treatments and practices in the field of emergency medical services (EMS) to a widely dispersed EMS community in North Dakota.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
To accommodate the needs of EMS providers throughout the state, the North Dakota Department of Health developed the EMS Distance Continuing Education Project in 1996. Program objectives include:

• Routinely disseminating timely, informative material
• Providing useful, current, diverse, and appropriate training materials to all urban and rural EMS facilities
• Maintaining high quality standards to support interest levels

STRATEGIES AND ACTIVITIES
The EMS Distance Continuing Education Project consists of a series of monthly training sessions developed by Department of Health officials. Each session is approximately one hour in length, presenting 20 minutes of didactic instruction by videocassette and 40 minutes of practical skills training. The monthly process of training session development involves:

• Selection of a continuing education topic
• Topic research to assure all relevant information is timely and medically sound
• Preparation of learning objectives to define priorities and retention requirements
• Creation of lesson plans for use by instructors to present information contained in the learning objectives
• Development of instruction sheets to assist local instructors in conducting practical skills portions of the training
• Providing highlights of state and national EMS news, squad profiles, answers to "frequently asked questions" and current safety concerns
• Videotape duplication into ½" VHS format

Once developed, each monthly training session is provided to 136 state EMS units, 35 rescue squads, 19 quick response squads, 9 major teaching institutions, and all trauma coordinators statewide.