This is the third in a series of drafts of subsections of a formal state Wilderness EMS plan for Pennsylvania. This is a project of the Wilderness EMT Subcommittee, EMT and Paramedic Advisory Committee, Pennsylvania Emergency Health Services Council. Input is also coming from the Legislative and Medical Advisory Committees of PEHSC.

We are looking for commentary from outside PEHSC. Please review and reply with your comments to wilderness-emergency-medicine@list.pitt.edu. If you have questions that don't need to go to all list recipients you may contact Keith Conover, M.D. (kconover+@pitt.edu), Subcommittee Chair.

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The third part of the plan, as per a vote at a Subcommittee meeting in March 1995:

"3. Interagency Cooperation: cooperation and coordination between the Pennsylvania EMS and Search and Rescue systems and their component agencies and organizations."

How can we assure cooperation and coordination?

Well, first would be joint representation: create at least an advisory non-voting position on the Board of Directors of both the Pennsylvania Emergency Health Services Council and the Pennsylvania Search and Rescue Council, for representatives of the other organization, so that there is better communication and, one would hope, cooperation.

Are there other organizations that should be included in this plan for joint representation?

We should probably try to arrange for cross-training between SAR teams and EMS agencies on a local level as well.

What about cooperation? Should we recommend that EMS agencies, except those solely in urban areas, have a SAR capability or a mutual aid agreement with a SAR team, or a formal plan to call PSARC/PEMA for search and rescue occurrences? And that all PSARC teams have either their own independent EMS capability, recognized by the state as an EMS agency, or a mutual aid arrangement with a local EMS agency to provide EMS personnel for field operations? (Oh, good, this sounds _very_ controversial.)

Please, let us know what you think. Thanks.

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Again, please reply with your comments to wilderness-emergency-medicine@list.pitt.edu. Thank you.