Renewing my EMR Certification
About 2 and a half years ago I got my Emergency Medical Responder certification. It was a really short and difficult class, but I made it through with the help of my prior EMT knowledge from New York. I don't think Monroe County will ever do an EMR class that short again because everyone struggled. I was certified in PA and National Registry from the same class in March 2023.
Fast forward to now and I started getting emails from NREMT.org saying I was expiring in September 2025. Surely that can't be right? My PA cert expires in March 2026! Sure enough it was true. The National Registry cert was expiring on the last day of September 2025 and my PA expires six months later. Did I have any idea how to renew? Nope. Nothing was discussed in class in detail, and back then I guess I thought I had so much time to think about it. I had emailed the EMS council for some info and I did get helpful information that I wanted to post and share in case someone wonders like I did about how to actually do this.
For both NREMT and the PA certs you'll most likely leverage https://www.train.org/pa/ where you can take online courses. You'll go tot he Course Catalog and search for "PA EMS" or just go to this link when you are logged in; https://www.train.org/pa/search?query=PA%20EMS&type=course and then pick courses. Any courses you take should automatically end up showing in the PA EMS Registry https://ems.health.pa.gov/registry/ when you look at the "Con-Ed" tab. It seems to take a little time to show up. EMS Council says it's about 24 hours to show up. If they don't show up then check in with your local EMS Council to address it.
So let's talk about NREMT since that seems to come up first. If you head over to https://my.nremt.org/rwd/recertification/certification once you login to the NREMT.org site then you can see how you can add courses to your transcript. I uploaded the certificates from PA Train there because that won't sync automatically. You'll add each class and then on https://my.nremt.org/rwd/recertification/education/manageassignments you can specify what classes met each required topic. Any courses you take outside of PA Train you can upload the certs for as well. Once they are all green then you'll be able to click on Recert Application on the left nav bar and apply. You'll have to pay a small fee and in about 48 hours you'll find out if they approved your renewal. It was pretty easy.
Once you get the renewal you may notice that on the NREMT.org site you are "Status: Inactive" which is what mine was at first. To fix that you need to edit your profile to be tied to an agency. On top of that my Fire Department wasn't listed on their site. The training officer for your org can make an account and go to https://my.nremt.org/rwd/account/roles and add the Training Officer role to their account. Then they can create your agency. Once that's done you can pick your agency from the list and the Training Officer will be able to approve that you are part of that agency. It was very easy. After that you'll notice on the left nav bar that you have an "Inactive to Active" option. Click that and within a day you should become active. It's at this point that you are good and you can go to https://nremt.org/Products/Cards/National-Registry-Current-Certification-Card and order a new card if you want to do that or just print out your card from your account.
For Pennsylvania the below talks about the different types of credit. You must complete at least 16 hours of Continuing Education within your 3 year certification period. 12 of those Con-Ed credits must in the CPC (Critical Patient Contact) category. The rest can be in the Other Category. If you are EMSVO certified, then you need at least 3 EMSVO Con-Ed credits.
This part is a little confusing, but any EMSVO credits you earn, also count as Other. So if you earn 3 EMSVO credits, you have also earned 3 Other credits. When you see the EMSVO credits listed in your Con-Ed Summary Report, EMSVO does not have a separate column because they already counted towards your Other Con-Ed credits. This is only if you have your EMSVO endorsement, which is a requirement if you are operating an ambulance. If you don’t have your EMSVO, then you don’t need to earn any EMSVO credits. Below is a breakdown of the different Con-Ed Categories – CPC vs Other. You can earn these credits either in-person or on-line.
To recertify you'll also need to update your CPR so that it's current. Take a CPR class and then follow the attached instructions to update it in the EMS Registry https://ems.health.pa.gov/registry/
Now you are all set to follow the below instructions to apply to renew your PA EMR through the EMS Registry https://ems.health.pa.gov/registry/
If you have reached the end then you are either fully renewed or you are struggling. Throw a comment here if you feel stuck and I'll try to share because this was a very big learning experience for me. Don't worry if you expire in a week because you can get the 16 credits needed if you devote even two full days to sitting and taking online courses.
