The HOPE Collaborative: Helping Optimize Prehospital Equity

Research is essential to change. A data-informed, equity-focused, and evidence-based approach to system-level improvement is critical to advancing patient care and strengthening the health of the community. In the prehospital setting, while inequities in care have been described, these studies have been largely conducted in EMS systems that don't mandate the recording of race and ethnicity, which has been demonstrated to introduce bias. The HOPE Research Collaborative aims to leverage comprehensive demographic data from nine EMS agencies across the country, over as many as 33 years, using data on over 7 million patient encounters to understand, evaluate, and address inequities in care like never before. Medical directors from the differing agencies will discuss the creation, ongoing work, and future plans for this first of a kind research collaborative focusing on enhancing equity in prehospital care and opportunities for future collaboration.