From Blind Spots to Better Decisions: Meeting Today’s Health Care Demands with Connected EMS-Hospital Intelligence

AHA Leadership Scan: A Series of Virtual Panel Discussions

From Blind Spots to Better Decisions: Meeting Today’s Health Care Demands with Connected EMS-Hospital Intelligence

Tuesday, April 28, 2026 
1 - 2 p.m. Eastern; noon - 1 p.m. Central; 10 - 11 a.m. Pacific    

Hospitals are under pressure to run more efficiently while patient demand and staffing constraints continue to intensify. These challenges underscore why timely information on pre-hospital activity and community care is essential, particularly for emergency services. Data that arrives late, is disconnected or is not transferred can lead to blind spots for care delivery  

In this Leadership Scan, hospital, EMS and health information leaders will explore why connected EMS-hospital intelligence is essential to modern operations. Panelists will discuss how real-time interoperability, automated workflows and up-to-date market intelligence is strengthening care coordination, reducing manual work and improving visibility into patient flow — from the field to the emergency department — to meet today’s health care demands.

Panelists will discuss how their organizations are:

• Improving EMS-to-hospital interoperability so pre-hospital data can be accessed quickly, reliably and in context for clinical and operational decision-making.
• Reducing friction in data exchange with automated patient matching that connects EMS encounters to hospital records with less manual effort.
• Using near real-time EMS data to understand patient in-flow patterns, referral dynamics and community demand — and translate these insights into action.

Attendees will gain practical takeaways into how interoperable systems can strengthen demand readiness, improve response execution, and support recovery and after-action improvement.

Attendees Will Learn:

• How market intelligence can help hospital teams filter and monitor emerging infectious disease outbreaks and identify geographic “pockets” of activity to support earlier situational awareness, as learned during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Practical strategies for aligning EMS, hospital and regional partners around shared data standards, workflows and governance before crises occur.
• How connected data supports faster triage, patient tracking, resource deployment and post-event evaluation to improve future preparedness.

Speakers:

Carolyn C. Carpenter, MHA, FACHE
President, National Capital Region
Interim Senior Vice President, Operations
Johns Hopkins Health System 

Jonathan Berkowitz, MD MBA FACEP FAEMS 
Vice President, Transfer and Acute Coordinated Care 
Medical Director, Northwell EMS 
Northwell Health

Jeff Comeau 
Strategic Advisor 
ImageTrend  

Alison Bereschak, BSN, RN 
Product Manager – Hospital
ImageTrend  

Moderator:

Rhonda Fischer, RN 
Clinical Lead, AHA Team Training Program 
American Hospital Association 

By attending the AHA Leadership virtual panel discussion "From Blind Spots to Better Decisions: Meeting Today’s Health Care Demands with Connected EMS-Hospital Intelligence" offered by the AHA, participants may earn up to 1 ACHE Qualified Education Hour toward initial certification or recertification of the Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) designation.