EMS Topics

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss the difficulty San Francisco FD is having meeting EMS response time standards. The FD crunched the numbers, said they needed 42 more paramedics, and the city gave them only 16. Unsurprisingly, they’re still having difficulty making their response time standards, and now the city is turning to ...

In this week’s episode of Inside EMS, it’s all about the Benjamins. Co-host Chris Cebollero and I discuss Rural Metro’s decision to close most of its Indiana operations, laying off 361 EMTs in the process, a Virginia county’s program to cover ambulance co-pays for its residents, and a Missouri petition to halt outsourcing of ambulance billing. In our Clinical Issue, ...

For the past month, I’ve been teaching my first full EMT class taught under the new EMS educational standards. I’ve always sort of front-loaded anatomy and physiology in my courses, because I fervently believe that extra time spent in teaching how the body works makes it much easier to understand what to do when it’s working incorrectly. In the old ...

May 19 will be my sixth anniversary as a Borg drone here at Southwest Hive. I’m still not fully assimilated. Likely never will be. I jokingly call my employer The Borg because of their tendency to gobble up smaller ambulance services on the fringes of their territory, relentlessly expanding their empire, like, well, The Borg. And they do have their ...

I'm coming to your neck of the woods this weekend, speaking at ERM's Third Annual Winter Seminar in Portland, CT on Saturday, December 14. They've still got a few seats available, and you can get 7 hours of EMS continuing education, lunch and snacks for only $45. Call the folks at Emergency Resource Management at 860-342-0902 to reserve your seat! ...

Emergency Resource Management is conducting its 3rd Annual Winter Seminar on Saturday, December 14 in Portland, CT. I'll be doing EMS Mythbusters and Thoracic Trauma lectures, and Chief Jon Politis will be doing a couple of lectures as well. This is likely your last chance to get CEU credit in 2013, and the seminar has been approved for 7.5 hours ...

EMS volunteer squads are like a battered wife, covered in bruises and scared of her own shadow, stuck in an abusive relationship with Small Town America.* Because, if you ever suggest that perhaps their town could and should pay them for their services, but never will as long as they're willing to provide them for free, they're all, "B-b-but I ...

A JEMS article on the Austin-Travis County EMS System asks is Austin’s EMS system broken? Honestly, ATCEMS hasn’t been anywhere near as good as its press clippings for at least ten years. See: laurels, resting on. The article concludes: “Using the ICMA six signs as a diagnostic, one could conclude the Austin-Travis County EMS system is in distress. The EMS ...

I'm putting together a new conference presentation on Children With Special Healthcare Needs, and I figured I'd do a little crowdsourcing to get the parents' perspective on EMS care for their children. Specificially, what I'd like to know is: What is your child's medical history? What, in your view, are your biggest concerns for providing EMS care for your child? ...

… Gene Gandy and I have a new article in EMS World Magazine. Gotta give props to Gene, who did most of the heavy lifting in this one. Gene Gandy and Ambulance Driver, deconstructing EMS one myth at a time…

There's a new column up on EMS1. The Stand-Back, Big-Picture, Non-Interventional Paramedic. Enjoy.

Protocols are intended to be an organized framework for delivering care. Written well, they are a floor, ensuring that even the least competent medic in your system delivers the same basic care as your best medic. Written poorly, they are a ceiling, forcing the best medic in your system to render care on a par with the least competent one. ...

… I have a new article in EMS World Magazine. Fatal Mistakes in Prehospital Medicine.   Enjoy.

When you hear hoofbeats, think horses… unless you're on the Serengeti. Got an article in EMS World magazine on cardiac zebras. Big props to my co-author Gene Gandy, who did all the heavy lifting on this one.

… there's a new clinical tip on EMS1.com Apneic Oxygenation: Everything You Know Is Wrong. Enjoy!