**Evaluate this session**
Fatigue affects all personnel involved in EMS and can result in clinical and operational errors as well as costly emergency vehicle accidents. Research has shown that greater than 50% of all EMS personnel suffer from mental and physical fatigue, greater than 50% reporting poor sleep quality, and half getting less than six hours of sleep a day. In addition, 50% don¹t get the recovery they need between shifts, and odds of an injury or medical error are much greater among those fatigued versus those not reporting fatigue. Dr. Patterson served as the principal investigator of a multi-year, multi-phased project aimed at developing and testing evidence-based guidelines for fatigue management in the EMS environment. During this informative and valuable presentation, Dr. Patterson will present the project's five evidence-based recommendations and discuss how local EMS organizations can use them to implement and develop their own fatigue risk management program. He will discuss the evidence on shift duration, napping during duty, use of caffeine, fatigue education and training, and other topics investigated as part of the evidence review.