Data, even when it’s inaccurate or represented out of context, can confirm our biases. Lexipol Editorial Director Greg Friese, MS, NRP, responds to the viral NREMT post with five questions to answer about how your agency’s data is being shared and interpreted. Read more here.
By Leila Merrill
COLUMBUS, Ohio — The EMS staffing crisis is real, but a related post circulating on social media is not accurate.
The image in the posts suggested a steep fall in new EMS providers supposedly based on data from the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians.
The organization issued a warning Wednesday about the image. It describes the data as incomplete and dating back to January 2021. The organization has removed the statistic from its website.
The U.S. currently has 442,123 nationally registered EMS professionals, and the number is subject to change, the organization announced.
Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 3 of this year, 81,255 EMS providers were nationally registered for their first time. NREMT plans to release data for all of this year in its upcoming annual report.
A total of 124,958 providers were certified in 2020, according to NREMT’s annual report for that year.
https://twitter.com/NREMT/status/1455962375602020357