Texas emergency response officials gather in College Station to take on healthcare issues

COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Emergency services leaders from across the State of Texas are in College Station this week to share and learn about best practices.

Officials with emergency services agencies from the Texas-New Mexico border down to Beaumont are in College Station for the Texas EMS Alliance conference.

It’s a three-day conference where EMS agencies ask questions and learn from one another, then take the knowledge back home with them.

Officials say collaboration of this level is essential for the growth of EMS agencies across the state of Texas.

Adam Gallagher, EMS Chief with Robertson County EST, said the conference is jam-packed with opportunities to learn, network, bounce ideas, and problem-solve.

“We feel like we’re kind of running into the same problems, but we didn’t know we were until we all got together in the same group to be able to discuss and go, ‘yeah, I’m seeing that problem too. Let’s figure out how to fix it.’ And this program- this organization, this conference- does that for us,” he explained.

A significant issue for agencies across the state, according to Gallagher, is rural healthcare funding. That’s why they are being taught how to best push for advocacy.

He added that there hasn’t been a hospital with an emergency room in all of Robertson County since before the year 2000.

Butch Oberhoff, president of the Texas EMS Alliance, said this makes it more challenging for EMS officers to provide life-saving care. That’s why collaboration is key.

“‘What can we do to save more lives in Texas?’ And the ‘Whole Blood Initiative’ sort of was produced from that, and now Texas leads the nation in providing whole blood in the pre-hospital environment. We’re saving lives, we’re saving health care dollars, believe it or not,” said Oberhoff.

The Whole Blood Initiative is a program that supplies EMS agencies with life-saving blood for emergency trauma care. It’s a resource especially needed for rural healthcare agencies that lack the resources available in bigger cities.

“Rural healthcare is especially challenging in any rural part of Texas. But by having a voice and working with other EMS agencies, we can bring resources back to those communities,” Oberhoff furthered.

It’s an issue we’re also seeing in Robertson and Leon counties.

“We’re not a fancy service. We’re not flashy, but there’s things that we do that take the taxpayers into consideration, and that’s why it’s important that we don’t put the burden on them; that we come here and we talk and we advocate, and we go to the state and we say we need federal funding for these things,” added Gallagher.

Texas House Representative Tom Oliverson (R-District 130) made an appearance as a keynote speaker, honing in on the importance of rural health care funding across Texas.

Gallagher told KBTX a portion of the $50 billion from the Trump administration’s Big Beautiful Bill will be allocated toward funding rural healthcare.

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