Dr. William Ramsey has announced major progress in the deployment of the West Virginia electronic patient care record.  In the announcement Dr Ramsey deals with the following:

1) The West Virginia EMS Data System

2) The Implementation of PreMIS With Target Implementation Dates

3) Printed Patient Care Record Requirement Changes - to allow, with certain stipulations, a vendor to use their custom report.

To read the memo click here.

The State Trauma and Emergency Care System and the Office of Emergency Medical Services is pleased to announce the availability of third party software program certification for the West Virginia electronic patient care record. The EMS Performance Improvement Center in Chapel Hill North Carolina will be conducting the certification process for the State of West Virginia. Vendors seeking certification for their software should contact Jeff Robertson Database Administrator at jrobert@med.unc.edu to begin the process. For an outline of the process please refer to the vendor document on the EPCR subsection of the WVOEMS WEB.

Please be advised:

First: Agencies should be reminded that, at present, no software is certified as capable to submit data to the West Virginia Data System. EMS agencies are advised not to purchase from a vendor until they are sure the software has the potential to will work correctly.

Second: While only West Virginia approved third party software will be allowed to submit data to the West Virginia Data System, this software approval alone should not be taken and is in fact not an authorization for the any agency to submit data! Before an agency can begin to supply data, the specific agency installation of the vendor product must be tested and approved. Failure to receive both Vendor verification/certification and Agency installation verification/certification will result in the data being rejected!

For questions or if you have problems with the process please contact Robert Lee Dozier at bdozier@wvdhhr.org

West Virginia STECS/OEMS has partnered with the EMS Performance Improvement Center (EMSPIC ) at the University of North Carolina  to utilize the entire EMS Data System currently being used on a statewide basis in North Carolina for almost two years. This system includes the Prehospital Medical Information System (PreMIS ) Record collection and storage system as well as a Credentialing Information System (CIS ) which provides collection and tracking of EMS personnel and agencies.

WVPreMIS will become the benchmark EPCR for West Virginia, ensuring strong compliance with the NEMSIS federal information standard. More importantly, this new adherence to NEMSIS standards will pave the way for detailed EMS run data analysis and quality improvement programs.

Agencies wishing to use a third-party EPCR for data collection/submission instead of WVPreMIS must pass a West Virginia certification program (read West Virginia EPCR Vendor Requirements  for more information) to ensure compatibility with both the federal information standard (NEMSIS ) and West Virginia specific requirements.

For more information, read EPCR Memorandum and EPCR Frequently Asked Questions .

Software developers and IT managers should be familiar with the scope of data that West Virginia requires. WVPreMIS defines a data set that is more detailed and specific than the minimum federal standard (NEMSIS Silver). The following documents detail the technical requirements necessary in order to achieve West Virginia compliance:

• Data Element Completion Requirements for WVPreMIS
• NEMSIS EMS DataSet (XSD), used for XML validation
• West Virginia Data Dictionary 1.0
• WV EPCR Vendor Requirements

Data Element Completion Requirements for WVPreMIS

EPCR Memo

PreMIS FAQ

EPCR Vendor Requirements

North Carolina EMSPIC 
(DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LOG-IN)

North Carolina PreMIS
(DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LOG-IN)

North Carolina CIS 
(DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LOG-IN)

National EMS Information System (NEMSIS)