Cherokee County Fire And Emergency Services: Pierson Receives The Dr. James Creek EMS Pioneer Of The Year Award

Press release from the Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services:

June 18, 2021

The Northwest Georgia/Region 1 EMS Awards Banquet was held on Thursday, June 10th, at the Cherokee County Conference Center at Northside Cherokee Hospital Conference Center on the Bluffs Parkway in Canton, Georgia. This year the host hospital is Northside Cherokee, and the host EMS agency is Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services. This annual awards banquet recognizes EMS providers that have shown exceptional patient care, leadership and significant contributions to the EMS profession in NW Georgia over the last year, or during their career. Randy Pierson, Cherokee County’s Paramedic Program Director, was this year’s recipient of the Dr. James Creel EMS Pioneer of the Year Award.  Dr. Creel was named as the first Regional Medical Director of EMS for Region 1. Dr. Creel had already established a smaller version of a regional EMS system in the Dade, Walker and Catoosa County area in the 1970s and with his appointment the boundaries of his region were extended to 16 counties. He worked to establish a better relationship between physicians and EMS personnel through the establishment of medical control and joint training courses. This award honors a person who has been instrumental in the development of the region’s EMS system and has served multiple roles throughout their career for the betterment of our profession. The recipient of this award is selected by an average of the scores of 3 independent judges. Randy came to work for the department on August 30th 2015.  He was responsible for getting the “Initial Accreditation” to the Emergency Medical Services-Paramedic Training Program at Cherokee County Fire & Emergency Services by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Program in March of 2019.  The CAAHEP Programs is the largest programmatic accreditor of the health sciences professions. In collaboration with its Committees on Accreditation, CAAHEP reviews and accredits over 2100 individual education programs in 30 health science occupations. CAAHEP accredited programs are assessed on an ongoing basis to assure that they meet the Standards and Guidelines of each profession Congratulations to Randy Pierson for receiving this honor at the awards banquet.

This press release was produced by the Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services. The views expressed here are the author’s own.