The clock is ticking.
A medical emergency is unfolding, and a room full of EMS professionals fight against time to recognize not just what is happening, but also how to diagnose their patient. They have experienced emergencies like this one plenty of times, only this time is different.
It isn’t real. It’s an escape room.
This scenario was one of several immersive learning experiences at the 2026 Active EMS Symposium at UNMC, designed to give emergency medical services professionals an opportunity to put their skills to work in realistic situations while learning from experts from around the state.
The escape room itself was about more than simply solving a series of challenges. Nichole Cooks, a stroke coordinator at Nebraska Medicine, led the charge in planning the EMS escape room.
“From the escape room itself, I hope that they’re taking away how to recognize a hemorrhagic stroke early and how to identify when they need to take them to a higher level of care,” Cooks said.
Cooks will also play a major role at the upcoming Statewide Stroke Conference, taking place across four UNMC campuses simultaneously today (Sept.18). Like the conference, the Activate EMS Symposium is part of an effort to make healthcare education more accessible across Nebraska, where resources can be more limited in rural communities.
Scott Muldoon, a physician outreach liaison at Nebraska Medicine and one of the organizers of the symposium, said the event also serves as an opportunity to give back to the EMS professionals who are saving lives across the state.
“As a teaching hospital, we see folks coming from all over Nebraska get treatment,” Muldoon said. “We thought it was an opportunity to get them here in Omaha to see some of our center, get to know the folks that they work with every day … and kind of give back.”
For EMS professionals in rural areas, access to specialized education can be difficult, Muldoon said, adding that while other EMS events offer hands-on training, iEXCEL has resources that many EMS professionals will not encounter in their everyday work.
“There are some great hands-on sessions and use of mannequins and things like that,” Muldoon said. “It is an opportunity for us to not only get them on our own campus, to show off some of the things that we have, but to give them … a hands-on experience that they’re not getting at some of these other events.”
The iEXCEL program at UNMC is housed at the Davis Global Center and is home to countless state of the art technologies that are advancing approaches to healthcare education.
As more departments become involved and EMS professionals from across Nebraska take interest in the symposium, organizers hope to continue building on its momentum. As the third annual symposium, this year’s attendance and participation was the best yet, and as the numbers continue to climb, so too does the impact it has on these EMS professionals.