Full Title

Your Name

EMS Education Department, Citizens Memorial Hospital

2022 Paramedic Academy

EMS 521 (Paramedicine III) Course [update the course as appropriate]

Brice Flynn, Lead Instructor

December 15, 2022 [update the date as appropriate]

This is your template to write your ARP. Everything in red should be removed or replaced with your original content. Sections that are not addressed until later should be left in red until that section is due. When this paper is complete at the end of the third trimester, there should be no more red text left.

Follow the American Psychological Association (APA) Publication Manual (7th edition) for formatting, citations, and references. It is recommended to use Microsoft Word’s built-in source management tools that will automatically update the reference section. Here is an example of Word managing a citation that will show up in the reference section (American Psychological Association, 2020).

This is a significant part of your grade and should take you several months to complete; treat this project with due appreciation and dedication.

Abstract

This section is to be completed during the third trimester in the EMS 521 (Paramedicine III) course. This should be the last section of this paper you write. It is a summary of the entire document. It should also be self-contained so if the audience only reads this section, they will get all the information they need. Think of the CEO of your hospital wanting to get the basic info from your project to approve your recommendation. He or she will only read this section and have everything they need to make an informed decision.

State and define the problem statement. State and define the purpose statement. Summarize all of the research questions. Summarize all of the procedures. Summarize the results. Finally, summarize your recommendations.

Table of Contents

Problem	4

Background and Significance	5

Literature Review	6

Recommendations	7

References	8

Appendix C: Proposed Documents	9

Appendix D: Presentation	10

This section should update all the page numbers automatically. Simply select everything, right click, and select “Update Field.”

Problem

The first line in this section should be: “The problem is…” and clearly identify your problem. The problem should be very specific and have a practical significance for your own organization. It should also be interesting to you. The problem statement should be limited to one sentence. Focus on the present and do not analyze causes at this point. An example might be, “The problem is CMH EMS is not able to provide medications that require refrigeration.” The problem statement should be clearly defined. Use multiple sentences to do this. The problem statement should be specific. Specify EXACTLY the focus of this problem to geography, time, agency, etc. Do not try to solve an EMS-industry-wide problem.

The problem statement must have practical significance. Use multiple sentences in one or more separate paragraphs to describe why this is a practical problem that needs resolution.

Background and Significance

Describe the background and history of the problem in your organization. Do not describe the background and history of the organization, your audience is interested in the problem, not your ambulance service. Provide a clear and complete background analysis of the problem. Be sure to provide sufficient evidence to justify this study from an organizational perspective. This section is trying to convince your boss to allow you to work on the clock to do this research.

Present the significance of the problem in your organization from a past, present, and probable future impact on organizational effectiveness or patient care. Three separate paragraphs focusing on what happened in the past that was bad, what is currently happening badly, and what will continue to go bad in the future if this problem is not fixed.

Literature Review

Provide a summary of critical findings of others who have published documents related to the problem statement. Ensure you are sufficiently comprehensive to provide a good foundation to build your own research study. Present your findings logically and clearly (i.e. chronologically, order of importance, cost, etc.)

Sources referenced should be as current as possible. The majority of your references here should be within the last five to ten years. Also, be sure to include at least a few credible sources (i.e. few peer-reviewed journals). EMS World Magazine or JEMS Magazine are not peer-reviewed journals, they are trade magazines that publish whatever the guest writer sent them that will sell more magazines. Internet searches are also not always credible.

Recommendations

This section is to be completed during the third trimester in the EMS 521 (Paramedicine III) course. Provide your recommendation to solve the problem identified. This recommendation must logically flow from the data found in the research results and relate to the problem statement. Your data must support your recommendation. Your recommendation must also be actionable by your organization leadership to do something.

If your results are inconclusive or recommend to keep processes, procedures, equipment, etc. the way it is, that is fine. You will need to have an actionable recommendation such as devise a new study for an alternative or implement a best practice that is only a minor change to the current practice. In the example of the problem statement of not being able to provide medications that require refrigeration, if the results indicate, ambulances do not need refrigeration, a recommendation might be to develop a medication supply task group with an agenda to continually review medications.

References

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association: The official guide to APA style (7th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

To update this list, keep your sources up-to-date in Microsoft Word, then select your whole document, right click, and select “Update Field.”

Throughout your entire document, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and sentence structure will be graded. Use spell-check and grammar-check in Microsoft Word. Also, you may utilize online services like http://grammarly.com. Finally (and probably most importantly), proof read your own paper and ask others to proof read it for you.

Any quotes or information not already known by you must be cited. Utilize correct APA format for all of your citations. Also, use this section to correctly display in APA format all the references cited. Each citation needs a reference and each reference needs a citation.

Appendix C: Proposed Documents

This section is to be completed during the third trimester in the EMS 521 (Paramedicine III) course. This is the result of a year’s worth of work. Provide a copy of the document based on your recommendation on how to solve the problem. This document may be a policy, protocol, or other information that answers the problem statement. Spend time on this and make it functional and visually appealing. This document needs to be in its final form and ready to be adopted by your agency. Include everything needed to solve the problem.

In the example of medication refrigerators on ambulances, do research on the make, model, and cost and include where to purchase the recommended refrigerators. Create a policy that states which medications need to be stored in the recommended refrigerators. Create a temperature-tracking log that would go with each refrigerator.

Appendix D: Presentation

This section is to be completed during the third trimester in the EMS 521 (Paramedicine III) course. Include your presentation materials here such as Powerpoint, script, curriculum, etc.