Guilford County EMS Honored with 2026 Nicholas Rosecrans Award at EMS World Expo
Source: California Ambulance Association
ORLANDO, FL — Guilford County Emergency Medical Services (GCEMS) was honored with the 2026 Nicholas Rosecrans Award at EMS World Expo in Orlando, Florida, before thousands of EMS providers and leaders from across the United States and around the world. The North Carolina agency was recognized for making injury and illness prevention a core responsibility throughout its operations and community partnerships.
Now in its 24th year, the Nicholas Rosecrans Award recognizes EMS individuals, teams, and organizations whose work helps prevent emergencies before they happen. It celebrates the role of EMS professionals in identifying community risks, building partnerships, and turning their firsthand experience with preventable harm into lasting improvements in health and safety.
The award is named in memory of Nicholas Rosecrans, a toddler whose drowning in 1996 inspired San Diego paramedics to pursue injury prevention in their communities. Their work included public education and advocacy for backyard pool fencing. Together with Nicholas’ mother, Lynn Artz, they helped build a national platform to recognize EMS prevention programs and encourage others to act. That legacy continues through the award and the work of recipients such as Guilford County EMS.
Making Prevention Part of Everyday EMS Practice
Guilford County’s approach brings prevention into field care, community paramedicine, overdose follow-up, and public education. Dedicated community paramedics and partnerships with healthcare providers, public health, schools, universities, and community organizations help residents receive support well beyond a single 911 encounter.
“Guilford County has made injury and illness prevention part of the mission of EMS, much as fire prevention is part of the mission of the fire service,” said John Ehrhart, Director of the California Paramedic Foundation. “They have carried that commitment across multiple issues—overdose prevention, chronic disease, childhood safety, and falls—and made it part of how they serve their community every day. That is what the Nicholas Rosecrans Award was created to encourage: EMS professionals using their experience and community relationships to prevent the next tragedy.”
Through community paramedicine, GCEMS supports medically fragile residents with home visits, monitoring, education, and care coordination. A partnership serving patients with advanced heart failure reported a 54 percent reduction in hospital readmissions and a 25 percent reduction in emergency department visits among participants, with more than $500,000 in savings for the health-system partner.
In overdose prevention, GCEMS works with Guilford County Solution to the Opioid Problem (GCSTOP) and other partners to connect survivors with naloxone, rapid follow-up, peer support, and treatment. From July 2022 through June 2023, the partnership reported serving 848 individuals, engaging 154 people in substance-use treatment, and recording 1,044 overdose reversals using kits supplied by the program.
The agency also provides age-appropriate health and safety education in schools and participates in Safe Guilford and Safe Kids Guilford County partnerships addressing child-passenger safety, bicycle and pedestrian safety, falls, and other injury risks. Together, these efforts demonstrate how an EMS agency can make prevention a sustained service for residents across the lifespan.
About the Nicholas Rosecrans Award
The Nicholas Rosecrans Award honors individuals, teams, and organizations that demonstrate leadership in EMS-driven injury and illness prevention. Facilitated by the California Paramedic Foundation and the RedFlash Group, in cooperation with EMS World, the award gives national visibility to successful prevention programs and encourages EMS agencies to develop similar work in their communities. Learn more at caparamedic.org/nicholas-rosecrans/.
About the California Paramedic Foundation
The California Paramedic Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to education, prevention, and collaboration in paramedicine. Its work supports the evolving role of paramedics in improving community health. Learn more at caparamedic.org.
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