Report

In 2006, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released a series of three reports on the Future of Emergency Care in the United States Health System. These reports called on the federal government and private stakeholders to initiate changes to improve the emergency care system. One of the key report recommendations encouraged the federal government to more effectively coordinate the emergency care-related activities that are widely dispersed through various federal departments and agencies. Following the release of the IOM reports, the federal government established the “National Emergency Care Enterprise,” a collaborative construct that covers federal government activities across the entire spectrum of emergency care. The formal embodiment of this collaboration is the Council of Emergency Medical Care, which promotes information exchange and joint problem solving across the various federal agencies.

On May 21-22, 2009, the IOM hosted a workshop to bring stakeholders and policy makers together to examine the progress in the past three years in moving the nation towards the IOM’s broader vision of a “regionalized, coordinated, and accountable” emergency care system. The objectives of the workshop were to foster information exchange among federal officials involved in advancing emergency care and key stakeholder groups from around the country; identify policy areas that are of concern to stakeholders and federal policy makers; and hold discussions with federal partners regarding the policy and program areas that should be the focus of coordinated federal action.