The Virginia Office of EMS is trying to determine Virginia EMS providers’ perspective on receiving an FDA approved COVID-19 vaccine and is investigating vaccine hesitancy. This survey will take approximately 1 to 5 minutes to complete and is completely anonymous.
To take the anonymous survey, please visit: https://redcap.vdh.virginia.gov/redcap/surveys/?s=97LTLHMT9R. Thank you in advance for your participation.
Tim Perkins, division director for Community Health and Technical Resources with the Virginia Department of Health, Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS) was recently honored with the prestigious “Community Star” award from the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH).
Every year, the NOSORH leads National Rural Health Day, an annual celebration that recognizes those who serve the vital health needs of an estimated 57 million people living in rural America, and celebrates Community Star award winners across the nation.
The Community Star Recognition Program’s nominees are selected by their state’s coalition to recognize individuals and organizations that make a positive impact in rural communities. This year, nominations were received from 48 states, a record for this annual awards program.
In Virginia, Tim Perkins was selected as this year’s Community Star award winner. As the Division Director for the OEMS’ Community Health and Technical Resources Division, he is responsible for working with rural EMS agencies, rescue squads and Regional EMS Councils throughout the commonwealth to provide a range of education, resources and technical assistance. He advocates for various agencies at the state level and oversees multiple initiatives, including mobile integrated healthcare/community paramedicine, disease management and preventative health care services.
During Perkins’ 14 years at the OEMS, there have been many changes in the provision of emergency care, which have put a strain on rural areas, including agencies that heavily rely on volunteers, an aging workforce, and recruitment and retention challenges. However, Perkins continues to be a leader in this field and has met those challenges by focusing his efforts on response and increased telehealth services in rural Virginia.
Perkins is an asset to Virginia’s EMS System and his contributions to rural health and the provision of emergency care is commended. The OEMS is proud to congratulate and recognize Perkins for his outstanding achievements and commitment to protect the health of all people in the commonwealth.
For more information about the Community Star award, please visit: https://www.powerofrural.org/community-stars/. On November 19, Tim Perkins will appear in the 2020 edition of the book of Community Stars, published on the official National Rural Health Day website, powerofrural.org.
RICHMOND—As COVID-19 surges in states across the country, Governor Ralph Northam today announced new actions to mitigate the spread of the virus in Virginia. While the Commonwealth’s case count per capita and positivity rate remain comparatively low, all five health regions are experiencing increases in new COVID-19 cases, positive tests, and hospitalizations.
“COVID-19 is surging across the country, and while cases are not rising in Virginia as rapidly as in some other states, I do not intend to wait until they are. We are acting now to prevent this health crisis from getting worse,” said Governor Northam. “Everyone is tired of this pandemic and restrictions on our lives. I’m tired, and I know you are tired too. But as we saw earlier this year, these mitigation measures work. I am confident that we can come together as one Commonwealth to get this virus under control and save lives.”
Governor Northam shared a new video to update Virginians on the additional steps the Commonwealth is taking to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, which is available here.
The following measures will take effect at midnight on Sunday, November 15:
Virginia is averaging 1,500 newly-reported COVID-19 cases per day, up from a statewide peak of approximately 1,200 in May. While Southwest Virginia has experienced a spike in the number of diagnosed COVID-19 cases, all five of the Commonwealth’s health regions are currently reporting a positivity rate over five percent. Although hospital capacity remains stable, hospitalizations have increased statewide by more than 35 percent in the last four weeks.
On Tuesday, Governor Northam announced new contracts with three laboratories as part of the Commonwealth’s OneLabNetwork, which will significantly increase Virginia’s public health testing capacity. Contracts with Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, and Sentara Healthcare in Norfolk will directly support high-priority outbreak investigations, community testing events, and testing in congregate settings, with a goal of being able to perform 7,000 per day by the end of the year.
The full text of amended Executive Order Sixty-Three and Order of Public Health Emergency Five and sixth amended Executive Order Sixty-Seven and Order of Public Health Emergency Seven will be made available here.
For information about COVID-19 in Virginia, visit vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus. Link to press release.
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With the arrival of the holiday season comes delicious meals, sweets, excess calories, and the potential for unwanted weight gain. Maintaining your healthy weight is vital to feeling and operating at your best. The key to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight isn’t about short-term dietary changes. It’s about a lifestyle that includes healthy eating, regular physical activity, and balancing the calories you consume with the calories your body uses. Click here to check out this month’s Health and Safety Infographic for tips about managing and achieving your healthy weight!
Click here to visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s website to learn more about maintaining and achieving a healthy weight.
The Office of EMS is pleased to introduce digital certification cards to EMS providers, EMS physicians and EMS agency leadership. Remember the days when you had to carry your printed certificate around and hope not to lose it? Those days are gone!
Digital certificates make keeping your certification with you easier than ever. The certificates are easy to pull up from a cell phone or computer. Providers can now download their certification card directly to their devices and keep it with them in digital format wherever they go! Digital certificates also make it a snap for an employer or organization to check and verify your certification levels.
Digital certification cards will be available beginning October 27, 2020. Accessing a digital version of your certification card is as easy as logging into the Virginia EMS Portal. If you printed or saved/stored your digital certification card on Tuesday, October 27, 2020, you will need to revisit the Virginia EMS Portal and download a new copy. There was an error in programming which malformed the data in your QR code used for recording continuing education credit.
A fact sheet on digital certification cards can be found by clicking this link.
Why transition to digital certification?
Concerned about Safety and Security?
Verify any Virginia EMS certification quickly on the Office of EMS website. This website allows for a search by a certificate number, first and last name and/or agency. If you are an employer and your employee has given you his or her Virginia EMS certification, or even just the certification number, you can use it to search for the certificate to validate that it’s valid as well as see when it expires.
This tool makes compliance and HR record keeping a breeze. Just go to the Virginia Office of EMS Digital Certification Verification web page and search for the certificate number you are trying to verify.
Once you’ve had a digital certification card, you’ll have a hard time going back to “the way we used to do it.”
Please see the online training for this new module for how to access digital certification cards.
