Houston EMSA—Houston, Texas

The City of Houston’s EMS system is part of the Houston Fire Department (HFD), which covers a 676-square-mile region. HFD EMS responds to 215,000 calls per year. Approximately 4 percent of their patients are children. Forty percent of pediatric calls originate in the home, and 44 percent are injury related. The agency is a two-tiered system comprised of 3,900 EMS personnel, all of whom are trained as firefighters with at least EMT level training. Four hundred of these EMS personnel provide paramedic level care. The majority of the HFD EMS system’s pediatric patients are transported to one of the hospitals in the Memorial Hermann Hospital system (affiliated with the University of Texas Health Sciences Center) or one of the Emergency Centers of Texas Children’s Hospital (an affiliate of Baylor College of Medicine).

Dr. Shah is chief of academic development and strategy for the Section of Emergency Medicine within the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. His national work in EMS includes serving on the Steering Committee for EMS for Children’s (EMSC) Prehospital Pediatric Readiness Program (2019-present), leading the prehospital domain of the EMSC Innovation and Improvement Center (2016-2018), being a representative on the National EMS Advisory Council (2015-2017), and chairing the EMS subcommittee of the American Academy of Pediatrics Section of Emergency Medicine (2011-2014). He has been awarded two EMSC Targeted Issues grants focused on developing, implementing, and assessing outcomes related to evidence-based pediatric EMS guidelines, and his most recent research focuses on pediatric seizure management.

Dr. Ostermayer is an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at Houston and served as an assistant medical director of the Houston Fire Department. Additionally, he serves as vice-president of the OpenEM Foundation. His research and academic work in emergency medicine are focused on guideline development, airway management, and software enhanced decision support. 

Balalah El-Amin is a 16-year veteran paramedic and firefighter of the Houston Fire Department. She has contributed to the Houston node of CHaMP for nearly 3 years. Through Pedi-Stepps, a collaborative effort between HFD and Texas Children's Hospital, El-Amin has even helped fellow firefighters refresh their own pediatric assessment skills. 

The members of the EMSA Field Provider Advisory Committee are all EMS providers, have an interest in EMS research and have previously participated in prehospital research. They have experience with all aspects of EMS study development including prehospital randomized clinical trials. 

Michael Vasquez is the lead research coordinator at Baylor College of Medicine for all CHaMP studies. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Houston Downtown, with dual focus on psychology and sociology. After graduating, he worked as a behavioral therapist for children on the autism spectrum, until he left to work for Baylor College of Medicine doing research. Michael has handled various research projects and is the lead research coordinator for the PediDOSE study. He works closely with Dr. Shah, who is the principal investigator of this study across the Texas Children’s and Memorial Hermann Hospitals in Houston.