Essentia Health-Fosston recognized for quality rural emergency care

Essentia Health-Fosston has been designated by the Comprehensive Advanced Life Support Program (CALS) as a CALS Hospital.

The CALS Hospital designation represents an institutional commitment to quality rural emergency medical care. It recognizes the clinicians who have completed the education and the administrators who provided the infrastructure for this achievement.

Essentia Health-Fosston met the criteria at the highest possible level, with 100% of emergency care team leaders completing the CALS Provider course and the CALS Trauma Module. In addition to leadership, several other clinical staff have completed this education, demonstrating their commitment to the CALS principles.

"This designation reflects our long-standing commitment to providing exceptional emergency care for our patients in Fosston and the surrounding communities," said Tanner Goodrich, senior vice president of operations for Essentia's West Market. "By participating in these courses, our staff maintain a high level of competency and are able to hone the skills required to provide expert, compassionate care in often traumatic situations. We want to be here for our patients when they are most vulnerable."

Essentia Health-Fosston has hosted CALS 12 times since 2003.

CALS is a program designed to prepare medical personnel in a team approach to anticipate, recognize and treat life-threatening emergencies. CALS provides a comprehensive, realistic, team-based approach to handling emergency medicine in rural settings. Developed in 1996 because of collaboration among emergency medicine, family physicians, rural practitioners, academic specialists, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and paramedics, it is now a premier education program for rural health care providers.