The NEMSQA Member Spotlight highlights members, partners and staff to help you get to know our community. 

Previous Member Spotlights

Introducing Avel eCare- Our first Affiliate Organization Member

Headquartered in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Avel eCare provides real-time telemedicine clinical support in 46 states and 10 service lines including emergency medicine, behavioral health and EMS. They have more than 30 years of experience in bridging healthcare gaps driven by the mission that Every person and every community deserves access to high-quality care through telemedicine. What do you think is Avel eCare’s unique impact on EMS?  

There are other telemedicine platforms that assist EMS but we deliver both cutting-edge technology and clinical expertise. We believe our clinical team, the foundation of our service line, are the difference makers. We are very clinician to clinician focused, ensuring the end user receives real-time, expert medical guidance when it matters most. In South Dakota, Avel eCare has partnered with 107 of the state’s 124 EMS agencies, providing critical support for prehospital care, interfacility transfers, and complex decision-making. Our expansion into Minnesota, Nebraska, and Kansas demonstrates the growing demand for this telemedicine model.

Why did Avel eCare become a NEMSQA member?

We discovered NEMSQA through our collaboration with the University of Minnesota on a NHTSA post-crash care project, aiming to measure post-crash care outcomes, provider satisfaction, and workforce recruitment trends in EMS. After doing some research, we recognized the shared commitment to quality improvement and joined as the first Affiliate Organization. We look forward to collaborating with other leading EMS organizations and industry experts, contributing to national quality improvement initiatives and exploring new EMS performance measures and best practices. We thrive on learning, collaboration, and innovation and believe there is opportunity to do all three with NEMSQA.

Why is quality improvement important to Avel eCare?
Quality improvement is music to our ears.  Quality is not just a goal—it’s the foundation of our work and drives everything we do. Our mission is to provide the highest level of care we possibly can. We are doing this by providing our agencies additional 24/7 access to a dedicated care team, including board certified emergency physicians, experienced paramedics, experienced emergency nurses and administrative support staff.  A whole care team!  Quality can be challenging to “wrangle”, but we believe together we can enhance, help execute and improve patient outcomes. We have some quality projects focusing on blood glucose management and EKG transmission, which we look forward to sharing with the EMS community. You can find more information at: EMS - Avel eCare
Avel eCare EMS ft. Edward Konechne
Rural medics get long-distance help in treating man gored by bison - CBS News

What would your dream job be, if you could do anything in the world?

John: My dream job would be a combination of EMS and riding a bicycle. Bonus points if it could be somewhere in the mountains!