Future-Proofing EMS: A Leadership Workshop on AI, Innovation, and the Transformation Ahead

EMS was built by visionaries who saw possibilities where others saw obstacles. In the 1960s Dr. Peter Safar championed standardized EMS data collection, purpose-built ambulances, and formal EMS education decades before any of them were considered realistic. Today's leaders face a moment of equal consequence: artificial intelligence, agentic AI systems, autonomous vehicles and aircraft are no longer science fiction. They are operational, scaling, and entering the emergency care market with or without fire service participation.

In 2026, Amazon launched Health AI, an agentic system that accesses patients' medical histories, explains lab results, and routes patients to care. When it determines someone needs emergency services, it tells them to call 911. Then, in most places, the data, the integration, and the AI assistance pauses until the patient reaches the hospital, where AI assistance is reintegrated.

Over 80% of physicians are regularly using AI today, while EMS adoption is less than 10%. DARPA developed a fully autonomous, no pilot onboard, Blackhawk helicopter capable of medical evacuations. eVTOL manufacturers are building aircraft for medical transport while hundreds of thousands of critical patients each year still transfer by ground to less appropriate facilities. The technology giants are building healthcare's future, and EMS is not yet in the architecture.

This four-hour workshop, based on "The Future of EMS: AI, Innovation, and Technology" (Fire Engineering Books, second edition), is built for leaders ready to change that. It opens with the question that determines everything else: is EMS healthcare, or transport to healthcare? Participants will then examine the real technology landscape with market data rather than hype, get hands-on experience applying AI to actual leadership tasks, and confront the unauthorized "shadow AI" use already happening in their agencies, whether they have a policy or not.

The final segment is dedicated working time. Through facilitated table discussions and a 90-day challenge framework, every participant identifies one technology to evaluate or pilot, one barrier to remove, and one leader to develop. Attendees leave with a draft agency AI policy outline built on national guidance and a 10-point implementation checklist, a 60-second technology pitch for their chief, board, or council, and a written 90-day action plan.

Change itself is not the threat. Resistance to change is what will make us obsolete. This session is for fire and EMS leaders who intend to shape what comes next rather than react to it after someone else has made the decisions.