Illini Emergency Medical Services recently won three competitive awards: Striving for Excellence in Campus EMS, Collegiate EMS Video of the Year and Collegiate EMS Advisor of the Year. The awards were presented at the 24th annual National Collegiate Emergency Medical Services Foundation conference in Baltimore in late February. IEMS is one of 246 campus-based emergency medical services organizations in North America, and one of 100 that attended the conference.
IEMS operates as a program within the Illinois Fire Service Institute. Its members provide training and standby emergency medical services to students, visitors, staff and faculty at Illinois. Each year, its more than 200 volunteer members provide emergency medical support to 200 events across campus.
The Striving for Excellence program recognizes organizations that meet certain benchmarks in their standards for patient care and delivery within their operational departments. The self-evaluation program assesses the delivery of care to patients, training and continuing education of members, and service to the community. IEMS is one of 16 collegiate agencies to receive this three-year recognition.
IEMS’ lead emergency medical services instructor, Nicholas Parks, directed and edited the submission for Video of the Year, featuring students, leadership team members and alumni.
Now in his 11th year as the advisor for IEMS, Brian Brauer, a registered nurse with a doctorate in education, was awarded the Collegiate EMS Advisor of the Year. Brauer is the associate director of the Illinois Fire Service Institute and has worked to promote IEMS within the campus community since his time as a student member in the 1990s. Thanks to his efforts, IEMS transitioned from a registered student organization to a program of the Illinois Fire Service Institute at Illinois on July 1.
More information about the NCEMSF may be found online.