As is my habit, I live tweeted the 2017 Annual Meeting. You can see every tweet sent under the #NAEMSP17 twitter feed here. Of note, this year I skipped a larger number of sessions than usual in order to work at the “Twitter Help” table. It was great to see so many of the big names in EMS take the dive into social media. I … Continue reading NAEMSP 2017 Annual Meeting
I covered this article on the Inside EMS Podcast with Kelly Grayson and Chris Cebollero. ~~~~~ A State of the Art Review published in The BMJ represents one of the most comprehensive reviews of peer-reviewed literature on shift work, sleep duration and quality, and the impact each has on chronic health outcomes and occupational accidents. Specifically, the authors studied 38 meta-analyses and 24 systematic reviews … Continue reading Why shift work is unhealthy and dangerous
The McSwain EMS Trauma Conference is a one-day symposium covering the treatment prehospital providers render to a range of traumatic injuries. It is held every year in New Orleans and named for Dr. Norman McSwain, the pioneering trauma surgeon and lifelong advocate for EMS. While the sessions covered a variety of topics across prehospital trauma, at this year’s event I took special interest in two … Continue reading McSwain EMS Trauma Conference
Northwell Health (N.Y.) has published preliminary results of the impact their community paramedicine program had within an advanced illness management program. “Providing Acute Care at Home: Community Paramedics Enhance an Advanced Illness Management Program — Preliminary Data” was published in the Journal of American Geriatric Society on August 30, 2016. Of the 1,602 patients enrolled in advanced illness management, see the workflow diagram, over the … Continue reading Community paramedicine program proves potential value
During the week in mid-August that saw seven trillion gallons of rain fall on southern Louisiana, the Louisiana Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue Team (LATF-1) received over half a dozen requests for aid or information via Facebook Messenger. Given that more than 20,000 people were rescued from rising flood waters over the course of that same week, half a dozen requests may seem like a drop … Continue reading How my USAR team used Facebook during the Louisiana Flooding
A Kansas law, which became effective on July 1, 2016, makes it legal for firefighters and EMS personnel to have a concealed carry weapon while on duty. The only exception is for school zones or private buildings specifically marked or designated as ‘gun free.’ Public employers, such as city and county governments, cannot prohibit their employees from carrying on duty. We asked EMS1 columnists to react … Continue reading Concealed Carry in Kansas: Experts Respond
I was included in a panel of experts that were asked to respond to questions on the 2016 EMS Trend Report published by Fitch & Associates in coorperation with EMS1 and NEMSMA. Read the other responses here. 1. Which State of EMS 2016 finding surprised or interested you most? Two things stood out to me. First, almost half of the organizations were able to implement hypothermia protocols, … Continue reading 2016 EMS Trend Report: Expert Analysis
Writing is a strangely individualistic sport. As such it requires a certain level of personal reflection on what works and what doesn’t. In an effort to not utterly bias my recent EMS1 article on the topic, I decided to poll a handful of writers beyond myself (CC) to see what works for them. You can read more about each of them here: Raphael M. Barishansky (RB) Ari … Continue reading Writing Q & A
My immediate reaction to seeing that revenues for the DallasFire-Rescue’s community paramedicine program were “below expectations” was anything but surprise. In fact, anyone surprised by this news doesn’t have realistic expectations of novel EMS business models. The reality is that community paramedicine programs across the country are learning how to be self-sufficient. Fire and EMS administrators are being forced to look at their balance sheets and bank … Continue reading Dallas Fire-Rescue Community Paramedicine Program
Fatigue within EMS is usually described in terms of a provider’s ability to get enough sleep. But there are other types of fatigue in health care, the study of which has remained siloed within brick and mortar facilities, resulting in a generic lack of focus from the EMS industry. These types of fatigue are real, and they have real, sometimes deadly, consequences. Defined as “sensory overload … Continue reading Alarm Fatigue in EMS
Flirting with Adrenaline 