Clarkson University Awarded $412,500 Grant to Expand First Responder Training Programs

Clarkson University has been awarded $412,500 from the Northern Border Regional Commission (NBRC) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) that will support the education necessary to address the EMS healthcare crisis in the North Country.

“This $400,000 in federal funding is just what the doctor ordered for the Lewis School of Health Sciences to help take Clarkson’s healthcare workforce education to the next level. In combination with the $7-plus million I delivered to the Lewis School last year, this award will help Clarkson grow their nationally renowned rural healthcare training programs by adding four simulation labs to better train EMT and paramedic students,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, D-NY. “This will help combat healthcare worker shortages in the North Country by training new emergency healthcare workers and is the shot in the arm St. Lawrence County needs to help our communities build a better future.”

Marc P. Christensen, Ph.D., P.E. said, “In a more rural community, one of the greatest challenges in teaching clinical skills and scenarios is access to real patient populations during the learning process. With our federal and New York State partners supporting the NBRC and USDA initiatives, our development of simulation labs will allow our students and community first responders to encounter and practice real world scenarios with frequency.”

The 2023 Catalyst grant award funding will be used to develop a high-fidelity training center for Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) and Paramedic education. The training center will allow Clarkson to train 300 EMTs and 60 paramedics over the next three years to fill open EMT and paramedic positions in the North Country.

Using this funding to develop dedicated EMS simulation laboratories to train EMT and paramedic students and provide advanced training for certified professionals will increase the number of full time EMS providers in St. Lawrence County, which will result in a decreased Emergency Medical Services (EMS) response time and decreased call turnover in the county.

Clarkson’s existing programs, which include EMT and Continuing Medical Education (CME), have provided educational training for 136 new EMTs and 321 certified EMS providers in the past 12 months, with the largest impacts in St. Lawrence, Franklin, and Jefferson counties.

Recently, Clarkson hosted its first Paramedic Program Open House - Advancing Rural Healthcare Solutions. The program’s open house featured Clarkson’s first cohort of Paramedic students and the faculty and partners in Clarkson’s healthcare network dedicated to this new program.

Critical to the success of the grant application was the work done to create schematic designs of the simulation labs as part of the Clarkson Civil & Environmental Engineering capstone course in the Spring of 2023.

Learn more about Clarkson’s Paramedic Program by visiting clarkson.edu/academics/schools-colleges/health/ems-education-department/paramedic-program.