EMS Industry Topics
Many of us have seen the use of drones increase dramatically in law enforcement and fire suppression, but they are also being deployed to augment EMS. In 2014, Alec Moment, developed a prototype of an ambulance drone. Designed to travel up to 60 mph, its purpose was to carry a small defibrillator to people who had suffered cardiac arrest.
You are treating an elderly patient with nausea and ask your partner to draw up some ondansetron, you take the syringe from him and deliver what you believe to be 4 mg. While cleaning up your ambulance after the call you realize that what you actually pushed was 50 mg of diphenhydramine. And just like that a medication error has been committed.
If you’ve been in EMS for any length of time you no doubt have had a conversation with somebody about response times. Perhaps you are a field provider who was spoken to about your extended response time, or as a manager you discussed your systems average response time with a town manager. It’s a metric we all live by and it’s a number we are all familiar with, but should this be a key indicator for our systems success?
Safety has become a continued focus in EMS, especially as it revolves around communication. The techniques found in Crew Resource Management (CRM) have helped develop a framework to improve safety through effective communication. The term Crew Resource Management was coined in the late 70s by the airline industry and was developed as a solution to a series of preventable incidents.
Employee engagement is one of those buzzwords we love to use but have a difficult time defining. When we talk about employee engagement we are referring to our employees’ commitment toward our organization, and more importantly to our patients. There are a variety of ways to measure employee engagement; through surveys, through discussions with current employees, or simply through the judgment of leadership.
It seems like just a few years ago pain management became a key issue that we were working on in out-of-hospital patient care. The National Association of EMS physicians published its position paper 15 years ago suggesting we better identify and treat pain in the field. There was an epidemic of untreated pain, and opioids were the solution.
By Chris Postiglione, MSN, MPH, RN, NREMT-P
Those of us of a certain age can remember going to the library and digging through a card catalogue or the stacks for an article (any article) that remotely met the assignment requirements. Or even better, choosing the country to write a report about based on the last Encyclopedia Britannica our parents picked up at the grocery store.
2016 is shaping up to be a banner year for EMS providers, with lots of gains over previous years in improving patient satisfaction. After evaluating the responses contained in of some of our clients’ patient satisfaction surveys and speaking with leaders in our industry, we have uncovered some of the top patient care trends that demonstrate how EMS providers are listening and adapting to patient care needs.
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