Performance measures · Geospatial modelling · Evaluation · Systems integration · Information security
Evidence a funder will accept, built before the program starts
Most rural EMS programs that work cannot prove it. The service knows the program is helping, the funder asks for outcomes, and nobody defined the denominator, the comparison, or the measure before launch, so the data to answer the question was never collected. TPF approaches EMS program evaluation the other way round: it builds the measurement first, runs the analysis to a standard that holds up, and leaves the client with a system their own people can operate.
What TPF does with data
Performance measure development. Defining what a system should measure and what it should stop measuring. Response-time percentiles answer a narrow question and have crowded out most others; the useful measures are usually about clinical outcome, appropriate destination, workforce sustainability, and cost avoided.
Coverage and deployment modelling. Geospatial analysis of where units are, where calls come from, and what a change to either would do. This is the analysis behind a standards-of-cover document, a station relocation, a regional consolidation, or a decision about whether a service can sustain a second unit.
Patient care record and data systems. NEMSIS and electronic patient care record work, data quality assessment, and the unglamorous business of finding out why a field is empty in forty percent of records before drawing a conclusion from it.
Dashboards and data governance. Building the reporting a board, a council, or a state office will actually read, and the governance that says who owns the data, who may see it, and how long it is kept.
Program evaluation. Logic models, outcome tracking, cost-avoidance and return-on-investment modelling, and mixed-methods designs where the question is not purely quantitative. Designs carry a stated primary outcome, a defined denominator, and a pre-specified analysis, and are reported against the guidance that fits the claim.
Applied health services research. Peer-reviewed work in rural EMS access, community paramedicine outcomes, and health economics, conducted with academic partners and published rather than filed.
Systems integration. Healthcare data standards including FHIR, HL7, and admission-discharge-transfer interfaces; computer-aided dispatch and geographic information system interfaces; and dashboard platforms. This is what makes an analysis repeatable instead of a one-off extract someone did by hand.
EMS program evaluation: the measurement comes first
The sequence matters more than any individual technique. A program that has been running for two years cannot retrospectively collect what it never captured, and the most common piece of work TPF is asked to do is repair: a community paramedicine program with genuine results and no evidence a payer or a funder will accept, because the framework was an afterthought.
Doing it in the right order is not expensive. It means deciding, before launch, what outcome the program is trying to move, what the comparison is, what the denominator is, which fields have to be captured to answer that, and who is responsible for capturing them. That conversation takes a day and it is the difference between a program that renews and one that ends when the grant does.
It also disciplines the claim. TPF distinguishes program-reported figures from evaluation-grade evidence and says which it is citing. A service reporting its own avoided transports is useful and is not the same as an independent evaluation, and a report that blurs the two will not survive a reviewer who notices.
Information security is part of this pillar, not a footnote
Agencies increasingly ask about data handling before they ask about methodology, and a consultant who cannot answer precisely does not get the engagement. TPF operates a Microsoft 365 environment governed by Microsoft Entra ID access controls and maintains organizational alignment with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 through an annual self-audit framework. A designated Security and Privacy Officer holds responsibility under Clause 5.3 for data governance, incident response, and regulatory compliance monitoring across engagements.
Engagement data is classified under a three-tier taxonomy of Public, Internal Use Only, and Confidential, with access restricted to named authorized personnel per engagement and transmission governed by approved secure channels. For engagements involving Criminal Justice Information Systems data, or European Economic Area and United Kingdom participants, TPF maintains supplementary clause sets under its adjacent framework governance.
Where an engagement involves protected health information, the obligations are contract-driven and handled as a matter of readiness: the applicable agreement determines what applies, and TPF scopes the data handling to it before the work begins rather than after.
Who does this work
The bench behind data and evaluation engagements
EMS data and analytics, program evaluation and applied research, and systems integration are three of the knowledge domains TPF maintains a standing bench in. Engagements in this pillar are staffed from the disciplines below and scoped to the work rather than to a fixed roster.
EMS performance measure development. Geospatial analysis, coverage modelling, and standards of cover. Health services research and continuous quality improvement. Health economics and rural health research. Program evaluation design and reporting. Healthcare data standards and systems integration. Dashboard development and data governance. Information security and access control.
Named profiles, credentials, and current roles for the full bench are on the team page. TPF names the individuals proposed for an engagement in the proposal for that engagement, where the names can be matched to the scope.
Published work and public tools
Selected peer-reviewed publications by TPF principals and subject-matter experts are listed on the publications page. Financial and staffing models that TPF makes freely available, including the EMS staffing and schedule calculator and rural cost and revenue models, are on the financial modeling page. The reference library and the community paramedicine historical archive hold the source material behind much of this work.
About data and evaluation engagements
Common questions
Why does an evaluation framework need to be built before a program launches?
Because the measures determine what data the program collects, and a program that has been running for two years cannot retrospectively collect what it never captured. The most common failure TPF is asked to repair is a program with genuine results and no evidence a funder will accept, because nobody defined the denominator, the comparison, or the outcome before the program started.
What information security standard does TPF work to?
TPF operates a Microsoft 365 environment governed by Microsoft Entra ID access controls and maintains organizational alignment with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 through an annual self-audit framework. Engagement data is classified under a three-tier taxonomy of Public, Internal Use Only, and Confidential, with access restricted to named authorized personnel per engagement. Supplementary clause sets cover engagements involving Criminal Justice Information Systems data or European Economic Area and United Kingdom participants.
Does TPF do peer-reviewed research or only consulting analysis?
Both, and it keeps them distinct. Consulting deliverables state the design, the measures, and the limitations openly so the analysis can be checked, and they are written and cited to APA 7 style; APA 7 governs the writing, not the method. Reporting follows whichever guidance fits the claim, such as CHEERS 2022 for an economic evaluation or the STRESS guidelines for a simulation study. TPF principals and subject-matter experts also publish in the peer-reviewed literature. A consulting report is not presented as a study, and a study is not presented as a consulting recommendation.
Starting a program, or asked to prove one works?
If it has not launched, the measurement can still be designed properly. If it has, TPF can establish what the existing data will and will not support before anyone promises a funder something it cannot.