| |
|
 |
| SEARCH |
|
|
| NEWS |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| FEATURES |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ARCHIVES |
|
|
|
| ABOUT US |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| EMS, FIRE RESCUE, DISASTER MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SINCE 1998 |
| |
|
April 2007 | Vol. 10 No. 4
|
Specialized Team Approach to Cardiac Care Pays Off
In 2005, Collier County, Florida, EMS Medical Director Robert Tober, MD, had a revelation that led him to completely overhaul the way his medics responded to cardiac emergencies. He wasn’t on a call when inspiration struck. He wasn’t at the hospital, either, or at a conference. In fact, Tober wasn’t even at work. Instead, he was relaxing at home, watching a NASCAR race on TV. ....
read more >
|
 |
The Pros and Cons of EMT Training in High School
Although you must be 18 years old to take the National Registry exam, a number of high schools and fire departments offer EMT-B training to students as young as 16. You might think that these programs bolster local EMS recruitment efforts, but, in fact, only a handful of the students from these programs pass the Registry exam each year. There is also some concern about exposing young people to the trauma associated with medical emergencies. What, then, are the benefits of EMT programs at the high school level?....
read more >
|
EMS Chiefs of Canada Offer an Innovative Vision for the Future of EMS
The EMS Chiefs of Canada has leapt out front in visioning the future of emergency medical services with the February release of a white paper titled The Future of EMS in Canada: Defining a New Road Ahead. The paper calls for EMS to move toward a new model of mobile healthcare delivery that is funded based on the actual costs of preparing and providing for the community’s healthcare needs.....
read more >
|
Tips to Limit Your Mutual Aid Liability
Mutual Aid Agreements (MAAs) play a critical role for emergency response and emergency management. Their value is obvious: MAAs lead to multiplication of emergency response resources. NFPA 1600 and the recommendations of the National Incident Management System (NIMS) also support use of MAAs.....
read more >
|
Quick Look at the News
The recent death of a Baltimore City Fire Department cadet during a live fire training session serves as a tragic reminder of the dangers of ignoring established protocol that serve to protect firefighters. The preliminary report by the Baltimore City Fire Marshal’s Office documented 36 violations of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1403 on Live Fire Training Evolutions.....
read more >
|
Media Monitor
EMS and fire leaders are increasingly in the public eye and increasingly evaluated on their ethical performance. Harvard psychology professor Howard Gardner has spent years studying the relationship between psychology and ethics and believes that maintaining an ethical mind is essential to organizational health. In a recent interview, he said that a person with an ethical mind asks herself, “If all workers in my profession adopted the mind-set I have, or if everyone did what I do, what would the world be like?” Gardner believes that leaders must state their beliefs and make sure they stick to them by testing themselves often and finding multiple mentors who aren’t afraid to point out when the leader is wavering from his stated beliefs. “[I]f you are not prepared to resign or be fired for what you believe in, then you are not a worker, let alone a professional,” Gardner said. “You are a slave.”....
read more >
|
Research Monitor
Use of a device known as a code card, listing typical calculations for drug doses/volumes and the formula for calculating proper endotracheal tube (ETT) size for pediatric patients, lessened error rates and calculation time, researchers reported. Among 94 prehospital providers using the card in a simulated setting, clinically significant and total error rates were 3.6 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively, while comparable error rates were 14.5 percent and 25.4 percent, respectively, among 89 participants not using a card. Card users completed calculations in a mean of 6.63 minutes compared with 12.67 minutes for nonusers. Card users also made error-free calculations of ETT size for a six-year-old child even though they did not know the formula to determine ETT size. Conversely, more than 31 percent of those who knew this formula, but did not use the card, calculated an incorrect ETT size.....
read more >
|
OIG Cautions Hospitals about Paying for Transport
The Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) warns that payment by a hospital to an ambulance service for transporting patients to the hospital from other healthcare facilities may violate federal anti-kickback statutes.....
read more >
|
FEMA Mulls Changes to Mutual Aid Reimbursement
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is revising its recovery policy under which it recognizes the eligibility of costs incurred through mutual aid agreements. If approved, this policy would permit agencies to negotiate reimbursement after an incident occurred, rather than have reimbursement terms spelled out in mutual aid agreements that might not foresee all the circumstances under which mutual aid might be necessary.....
read more >
|
Washington Monitor
In a largely partisan vote, Senators approved, by a 60-38 vote, an expanded version of the “9/11 Commission” bill that they received from their House colleagues [See Best Practices, February 2007.] No Democrats voted against the bill, and only 10 Republicans supported it.....
read more >
|
Develop a Best Practices Mind ------- FREE EDITORIAL CONTENT
When this newsletter began publication nearly 10 years ago, the term “best practices” was relatively new to emergency services. The term had been widely used in manufacturing, technology and business to describe processes that could be demonstrated to be superior to others. The idea suggested that there was a single method, process or activity that could be identified and proven to be most effective in obtaining a desired result.....
read more >
|
|
|
|
|
