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We Oughta Look In to This – EMS 2.0

3 comments

It looks like something has been right under our noses all this time, and I think that it just might be looking into.

Mobile Doctors: Http://www.MobileDoctors.com

Yep, you read that website address correctly, and yes, it really is a group of Primary Care and other physicians that make house calls their business. In fact, according to their website, they make around 5000 house calls PER MONTH in the Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, and Phoenix areas. The website also says they’ve been around since 1996.

I came across this ad today as I was surfing around and I was curious enough to click on it. I read their website with some interest, and their claims started sounding awful familiar to me. If you’ve been following the EMS 2.0 and Community Paramedicine movements, you’re probably familiar with what they say as well. It’s pretty much what we’ve been talking about. Read this:

“Our team of healthcare professionals specializes in chronic disease management and care plan development. This results in a significant reduction of emergency room, hospital and nursing home admissions for our patients.”

Also, this:

“Our practice focuses on primary care/internal medicine, podiatry, and diagnostic testing. Our goal is to provide high quality, responsive in-home health care to stabilize patients, improve their health, manage their medications, and reduce hospitalizations and ER visits. We also coordinate patient care with home health agencies, durable medical equipment providers, hospitals, and other medical professionals.”

Huh.

Those two short paragraphs in their static, online brochure of a website are quite obviously advertisements for the services they provide… but aren’t those the things we’ve been saying with the whole EMS 2.0 thing? Isn’t that what we want to do? To expand our service offerings and reduce inappropriate use of emergency healthcare while increasing overall wellness through primary care, that’s the point of it all, right?

Well here’s a company, albeit very much a physician driven company, that’s been making their living off of doing just that since 1996. In addition, they take Medicare.

I think that there’s something we can learn from this company and their business model. It’s worth a look at their website: Http://www.MobileDoctors.com. Sometime in the near future I plan on contacting them and asking them about how their company can interface with EMS.

Till then, take a look at these two posts and see what you think:

Primary Care Paramedics? I think it’s time

Are We the Gatekeepers to the Emergency Healthcare System? EMS 2.0

Posted by on June 8, 2011 • Filed under: Ambulance, Emergency Medical Services, EMS, ems 2.0, EMS Management, EMS Topics, Paramedic, physician, politics, Uncategorized

EMS 12-lead Case – Ischemia and Failure

8 comments

If you haven’t been to www.EMS12Lead.com, Tom Bouthillet’s wonderful EMS educational blog… well then I’m going to just come out and say this:

What are you doing here when you should be over there reading his stuff??

Considering how Tom dwarfs my humble traffic numbers (which is something I always kind of knew he did, but didn’t really know how much until I had a few drinks with him at EMS Today and weaseled his numbers out of him) I’ve figured that I’m going to have to do something. I’m going to straight up steal his shtick and write an “educational” EMS 12-lead EKG post of my very own for your reading enjoyment and educational purposes. Heck, I might even be able to make a point or two. Let’s find out.

I keep an archive of interesting tidbits from my EMS career locked up in a vault in my basement and among the oddities and whatnot I have a binder full of 12-leads. I blew the dust off of the old tome and pulled the EKG that I’m using for this story out of the archives. Oh my, this was a doozy. As always with my stories about patients, I may not have ran this one myself and even if I did, I don’t remember where it was that I ran it nor do I remember the age, location, or even the gender of the patient in question. I also have taken the liberty of lying about all of that stuff just to make it even more confusing and difficult for me to write. So, if you think I’m violating the female Hippo, you’re mistaken.

As I recall, the call was toned out with the dispatch information of a “64yo M Pt unable to breathe”. It wasn’t a long distance away and Our Intrepid Paramedic (OIP) responded in a response vehicle being followed up by an ambulance which arrived shortly after He did. It was a nice, well kept residence and the wife of the Pt let OIP in the door as he entered the home. She indicated that the Pt was in a back bedroom of the house and motioned down the hallway. OIP made the trek and found the Pt sitting upright on his bed, Conscious, Alert, and Oriented times 3 (CAOx3) with somewhat increased work of breathing. The patient stated that he had been experiencing pain that he indicated began at the level of his mandible and continued to his epigastrum (his Jaw to his Gut). He stated that the pain had simply become too much for him this evening and that it became very hard to breathe when he laid down for bed. A good look at him was all it really took for OIP to make a working diagnosis after feeling the patent’s weak and irregular radial pulse and pale, cool, and moist skin. OIP placed the patient on 6-LPM oxygen via Nasal Cannula and told the ambulance medic to break out a 12-lead. The initial rhythm strip showed a sinus bradycardia with an IVCD and lots of multifocal ectopy, including multifocal couplets and triplets. The 12-lead was no better. It showed bad, bad mojo. This poor guy was sick.

EEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeek

As the ambulance crew was packaging up on the stretcher to take the Patient to the ambulance, OIP had a few moments to speak with the patient’s wife. She told OIP that the patient had been experiencing pain in his jaw for the last week. She also told OIP that the patient had gone to see his Primary Care physician two days prior and had been told to take advil for the pain in his jaw. She told OIP about how the patient had been very lethargic lately and about how he would become winded when taking out the garbage and walking even shorter distances. She told OIP about how the pain had been getting steadily worse… and also how the doctor said he was fine.

And with a symptom profile of exertional fatigue, difficult breathing, jaw pain,  substernal chest pain, and diaphoresis… what doctor wouldn’t say that… right? Oh wait… hopefully most of them.

The patient wasn’t having a heart attack… he had been having a heart attack for days and now the damage had been done. This was a clear case of the patient not being educated to the symptoms of a heart attack… or of ignoring them in the hopes that they’d just go away. The physician did not obtain a 12-lead nor do lab work and did not diagnose the problem as being cardiac ischemia (Heart attack) when the patient presented for care.

But OIP did… about 2 minutes after meeting the patient he woke up the cardiologist and the cath lab team at a hospital a half-hour’s drive away to help take care of the man. You’ve seen the 12-lead above. It indicates a heart that is in serious trouble. The patient was treated per protocol, which included high-flow o2, bilateral IVs, NTG tablets and paste, and I’m not sure what else the ambulance paramedic did because OIP didn’t accompany the patient to the hospital. That,  and it was too long ago for me to remember what happened… I just know the patient made it there alive to find out whatever his prognosis was going to be from the cardiology team at the ER.

Here’s the deal, once this patient called the ambulance, his care was stellar. OIP and the other EMTs did a fantastic job at rapid recognition, appropriate stabilizing care, and swift transport to an appropriate care facility as none of the local hospitals had the capacity to care for this guy. The EMS people did what they were trained, equipped, and supposed to do. The problem is they were called way too late to make much of a difference in the patient’s continuing quality of life.

I can understand that patients don’t necessarily know when they’re having a heart attack. To a layperson, jaw pain and fatigue could just be the flu. Chest pain could just be heartburn, and exertional dyspnea could just mean that a person has been “pushing themselves too hard lately”. All of those symptom profiles could mean any number of things… but they could also be a heart attack. I can understand how people want to think that they’re not having a heart attack. I get that no one wants to have one. They’re not fun and we as a society may hype them up too much so that people think there is a stigma to the diagnosis. I don’t know if that statement is true, but it sure seems that way sometimes to me.

What I can’t understand is how a patient can present for treatment at a physician’s office with clear symptoms of cardiac ischemia (heart attack) and not be checked for it. I’d like to think that a paramedic would rule it out first and foremost… and I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t.

Then again, I don’t know the information the physician was working with. Perhaps the patient wasn’t honest with his symptoms and tried to minimize what was going on. That’s possible too, as this patient was a proud man who has lived his life like he could handle anything. People do that. Nobody wants to be sick.

The lesson here is to have a high index of suspicion. Patients sometimes minimize their symptoms, and sometimes they over-dramatize them. Some people don’t want to be sick… and some people want to be sicker than they are. I personally will buy into false drama from someone who’s not as sick as they want to be than chance missing the minimized symptoms of someone who’s sicker. I tell my patients that as a paramedic my job is to “Treat for the Worst, and hope for the best.”

But for this guy, OIP never got the chance. This was too late for that. The damage had been done.

This patient’s quality of life was greatly impacted by the fact that he didn’t call 911 at the first signs of his illness. Had he done so, his prognosis would be much different. A quick exam, 12-lead, and appropriate care would have made this guy’s story quite a bit different. Where was the failure? Was it the patient’s fault for not recognizing and/or minimizing his symptoms? Was it the fault of “health education” in general for not reaching the patient in a manner in which he could understand? Does the fault lie with OIP for not spending enough time educating the public about the symptoms and danger of heart attacks? Does the fault lie with this patient’s doctor for missing the diagnosis and/or not providing proper education beforehand?

I don’t know the answer to the above question either. I just know that OIP and the EMS team treated him well once the call came in. I just wish that something different would have happened in the chance of events that lead up to all of this. It would have made the above 12-lead a lot different.

Be vigilant out there.

Posted by on March 15, 2011 • Filed under: EKG, Emergency Medical Services, EMS, EMS Topics, EMS training, Paramedic, paramedic education, patient care, Patient Management, physician, Uncategorized

Colorado CRNAs Vs. Virginia Physicians? An interesting feud for EMS

24 comments

This article came across my Twitter stream this morning. It regards a letter sent to the Centers for Medicare/Medicaid Services by the Governor of Colorado informing them that in some Colorado hospitals it is now acceptable for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists to work independently of physician supervision.

The article, which is in the form of a letter written to the editor of The Aspen Times, is written by a Dr. Paul Rein who is the President of the Virginia Anesthesia and Peroperative Care Specialists. He takes issue with the lack of physician oversight and is “quite concerned” about it.

I think that the letter is important for EMS people to read. Especially us EMS people that are looking at how to expand our profession, grow our scope of practice, and expand our skill sets. It shows that there are struggles over these kinds of boundary and oversight issues all over the healthcare arena and that the politics and power struggles aren’t just limited to those of us that ride ‘round in ambulances.

The full text of the letter can be found here at The Aspen Times: http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20101004/LETTER/101009942/1020&ParentProfile=1061

The parallels I can draw from this issue to EMS are striking and enlightening. Here are some of the parts of the letter that I found the most interesting:

“A nurse anesthetist is an advanced practice registered nurse who has received special training to administer anesthesia, usually being supervised by an anesthesiologist. Anesthesiologists are physicians who, after medical school, receive an additional four to five years of specialized training during residency. Not only do anesthesiologists function in the operating room but they are trained to medically evaluate patients prior to surgery and to take care of problems that may arise immediately after surgery. In a few small hospitals a nurse anesthetist may be supervised by the surgeon if there is no anesthesiologist.”

I was curious as to the educational standards of a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist and so I went to their National Association’s web site: Http://www.AANA.com – It says this:

“The requirements for becoming a Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) mainly include having a bachelor’s degree in nursing, or other appropriate baccalaureate degree, Registered Nurse licensure, a minimum of 1 year acute care experience (ICU, ER for example), and the successful completion of both an accredited nurse anesthesia educational program and the certification examination.”

(Source: http://www.aana.com/BecomingCRNA.aspx?id=98&linkidentifier=id&itemid=98)

Huh.

Actually, I wasn’t familiar with the requirements for a CRNA before I read that, but it says that they have to have:

  • A four year degree in Something
  • Licensure as a Registered Nurse
  • A minimum of One Year Acute care experience
  • Completed an Accredited training program
  • A passing grade on the certification exam

I was curious, so I popped on over to Salary.com and typed in “Registered Nurse Anesthetist” in my own zip code for a base salary search. I found that they start out at $131,000 and top out at over $170,000 in my local area.

Then, after giving serious consideration to changing this blog from “Life Under the Lights” of Fire Trucks and Ambulances to “Life Under the Lights” of an Operating Room, I decided to point something else out about the differences and similarities of a Paramedic and a CRNA.

 “The didactic curricula of nurse anesthesia programs are governed by COA standards and provide students the scientific, clinical, and professional foundation upon which to build sound and safe clinical practice. The basic nurse anesthesia academic curriculum and prerequisite courses focus on coursework in anesthesia practice: pharmacology of anesthetic agents and adjuvant drugs including concepts in chemistry and biochemistry (105 contact hours); anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology (135 contact hours); professional aspects of nurse anesthesia practice (45 contact hours); basic and advanced principles (sic) of anesthesia practice including physics, equipment, technology (sic)  and pain management (105 contact hours); research (30 contact hours); and clinical correlation conferences (45 contact hours).

Most programs exceed these minimum requirements. In addition, many require study in methods of scientific inquiry and statistics, as well as active participation in student-generated and faculty-sponsored research.

Clinical residencies afford supervised experiences for students during which time they are able to learn anesthesia techniques, test theory, and apply knowledge to clinical problems. Students gain experience with patients of all ages who require medical, surgical, obstetrical, dental, and pediatric interventions. The results of a 1998 survey of program directors show that nurse anesthesia programs provide an average of 1,595 hours of clinical experience for each student.”

(Again, from http://www.AANA.com – the emphasis is mine)

Remember that the CRNA’s have a Bachelor’s Degree and a RN license prior to beginning their training. This is different from the Paramedic curriculum. We have hour requirements as well:

“The emphasis of paramedic education should be competence of the graduate, not the amount of education that they receive. The time involved in educating a paramedic to an acceptable level of competence depends on many variables. Based on the experience in the pilot and field testing of this curriculum, it is expected that the average program, with average students, will achieve average results in approximately 1000-1200 hours of instruction. The length of this course will vary according to a number of factors, including, but not limited to:

-student’s basic academic skills competence

-faculty to student ratio

-student motivation

-the student’s prior emergency/health care experience

-prior academic achievements

-clinical and academic resources available

-quality of the overall educational program”

 (Source: Http://www.EMS.gov – Thanks to Chris Webster, Sam Bradley, Greg Friese and Kevin Reiter)

Not that the above is related to the article I read, I mean it’s saying that people with a BS degree in something, a medical license, and what amounts to a little more than an EMT-B class plus an EMT-P class from an accredited school make an average of $150k… but I digress.

Back to the article, Dr Rein has this to say about CRNAs:

“It is interesting to note that the United States is the only westernized country in the world that allows nurses to administer anesthesia unsupervised. Countries such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Israel, just to name a few, have no nurses administering anesthesia. In some European countries there are a few nurse anesthetists who work under the strict supervision of a physician.”

He continues and says this:

“So what’s up with us? Well, it seems that the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists have convinced our government in Washington that unsupervised nurses are just as safe as a physician. They point to the fact that there are no comparative studies to show they are not. The reason there are no studies is that it would be unethical to perform such a study in which some people get a physician and some do not. Can you imagine a patient agreeing to participate in such a study?”

Can you imagine indeed?

Dr Rein is right when he says in the letter that Anesthesia is a Medical profession and is a specialty of physicians for a reason. When he says “Just because we have made it safe is no reason to take it for granted”, he’s right as well. Anesthesia is dangerous for the untrained and inexperienced provider and it is a specialty not to be taken lightly. However, where’s the line? Is this an attempt by the”Virginia Anesthesia and Peroperative Care Specialists” to fire a shot at the “American Association of Nurse Anesthetists?” Are Doctor Anesthesiologists afraid of losing jobs to the nurses? Where is the line where patient safety is best maintained while being most cost-effective and efficient?

If this doesn’t provide incentive to you to think about requiring a degree for Paramedics, I don’t quite know what will. I’m not doing this job for the money and neither are you, but does that make us any more or less moral than a CRNA who “Isn’t doing his/her job for the money” either, but still makes a ton more of it than any paramedic I know?

You could change the names of the players in this argument, fiddle just a bit with some of the details, and change this into one of a thousand other feuds going on under the healthcare umbrella. This is the same story that paramedics face when we’re trying to get new skills, new techniques, more money, and more responsibility. While I’m not taking a stand on the CRNA/MD issue because it’s not my specialty, I’m offering up this debate as a study in professional growth and conflict between two of the myriad of medical camps out there. As we push EMS forward, grow as a profession, and promote the EMS 2.0 agenda, learning from things like this will be of value to us all.

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Thanks to the following for their contributions:

Posted by on October 4, 2010 • Filed under: ckemtp rants, Emergency Medical Services, EMS, ems 2.0, ems education, EMS pay sucks, EMS pep talk, EMS Topics, EMS training, medical ethics, News, Paramedic, paramedic education, Patient Management, physician, politics, potential, profession, Training & Development, Uncategorized

What is the next “Low Hanging Fruit” of EMS 2.0 and of US Healthcare Reform?

12 comments

I’d like to ask a question to all of you medical-type folks out there, and for this one I’d like other healthcare professionals to weigh in, not just EMS. Of course, Paramedics and EMTs are encouraged to answer this question, but so are Physicians and Nurses (RN and LPNs), as well as CNAs and Techs. 

A conversation I had on Twitter regarding administration of 10% Dextrose IV (D-10) as opposed to 50% Dextrose IV (D-50) for hypoglycemic ambulance patients has me wondering something about how we paramedics can create major savings and improve patient care in a short amount of time. We need to look for more “Low Hanging Fruit”.

It is common practice for known diabetic patients presenting with low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) to receive a treatment with IV D-50, IM Glucagon, oral Glucose, or even with the “Kaiser Cocktail” and then sign off with an AMA refusal. The patients are encouraged to eat something containing protein and complex carbohydrates and are usually left in the care of one of their family members and/or friends who can watch them for a while and make sure they’re ok.

I’d say that calls like this make up a fairly large percentage of all calls for an ambulance. While I have no statistics to back me up, I would guess that it could be something like 5% or better. This complaint and resultant treatment pathway is something I do quite frequently in my own practice. Judging from my own experience, I would say it happens quite frequently in most other paramedics’ practices as well.

The question about administering D-10, as brought up by my twitter peep @un_ojo, is if all patients getting treatment with D-10 as opposed to D-50 should be transported to an Emergency Room. My answer was that I believe a 100% transport policy in this case would result in a lot of people being transported to an ER when they probably didn’t really need to be. This would result in a large population of non-emergent ambulance patients going to the ER who in the past would have been “treated and released” (at least under the guise of an AMA refusal) by EMS crews.

And that got me thinking about this question:

If paramedics did not currently have the means to treat hypoglycemia and every one of those patients were being transported to the ER, how much of a burden on the emergency healthcare system would be removed simply by giving paramedics D-50? Probably quite a bit, right?

What other common medical cases would be as appropriate for field “treat and release” (or “Treat and AMA”) care by EMS? If we save a few hundred trips to the ER by being able to sweeten-up and then release common hypoglycemics, what other conditions might we be doing the same for as safely and effectively?

Would this require some easily attainable training? What about new medications and/or equipment?

I look at this as the “Low Hanging Fruit” if you will, of EMS 2.0, and also of healthcare reform. I am a proponent of EMS crews handling more primary care duties, or failing that, of at least having more options in regards to treatment pathways.

That’s what I’m looking for here, folks. What could we do within six months that would make a big impact?

Please discuss in the comments section, and feel free to shoot me an e-mail at ProEMS1@yahoo.com. You can also weigh in on the LUTL Facebook page if you’d like.

Also, would you do me a favor and invite some of the other healthcare people to the party? I’d love to get some of their opinions on this.

Posted by on July 26, 2010 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, Als, Emergency Medical Services, Emergency Nurse, Emergency room, EMS, ems 2.0, EMS system, EMS Topics, Paramedic, physician, potential, Protocol development, us

Any Random Person

560 comments

I love Dave Barry, he has been called the most influential humor writer since Mark Twain. If you haven’t read any of his stuff, you really should. In fact, I’ll even provide a link to his web site here: www.davebarry.com. Yes, I’m providing that before what I’m sure will be my well-written, extremely interesting content below. He’s that good.

I put that up there because I am going to use a quote of his that he put into one of his columns; he asks his readers if they are saying to themselves “Hey, I can do this! *Any* random person can do this!” And he counters that they are wrong, because “It takes a very special kind of random person to do this”.

And that’s how I’m tying this into EMS.

I work with a few EMT-Intermediates (I-99 curriculum) and some EMT-IV Techs (WI has a version of a basic that can start IVs with NS and give a few IV meds) that are very sour on the fact that they aren’t paramedics yet. They’re not sour on the fact that they do not yet wish to sit through the required education to become paramedics, but they’re sour that there are skills that they can’t do that they see their ALS counterparts doing. They see us “paragods” performing ALS skills and say, “Hey, I can do that”.

And it may indeed be true. I see these days that they keep pushing skills that were once only the domain of paramedics down to the BLS providers. Heck, that’s what EMS is entirely built upon. In the far beginnings of our profession (and we’re still really in the beginning phases) the skills that Paramedics and EMTs perform were once only the domain of physicians. If you would have asked a physician in the 70′s whether a non-physician could interpret an EKG and give relevant medications and treatment as well as he could, you probably would have gotten a very incredulous answer. EMS is all about proving to the medical profession that treatments once firmly entrenched as only for use in the hospital have a demonstrated benefit to the patient when used quickly at the patient’s side close to the onset of symptoms. EMS personnel were trained for that most probably because it just isn’t cost effective to have doctors sitting around manning ambulances.

However, the question that has come up in my mind is where the bottom of that lowering of educational requirements for advanced skill performance ends. I have seen in my career a paradoxical movement in educational standards for paramedics and EMTs. There are a smattering of disparate and yet somehow complimentary certifications in some states, but while some educational standards have improved, most of them have decreased. While a good argument can be made for EMS levels between the Paramedic and the EMT-Basic, such as the I-99 and the IV tech in WI or the Iowa Intermediate in Iowa in the sense that they allow rural communities to be able to perform some advanced skills without having to shoulder the full breadth of costs and responsibilities associated with full paramedics, they also don’t take into account that a lot of those skills require a whole heck of education to be safely performed in the outlying patient that can be harmed by inexperienced providers.

The debate that I got into with an EMT-IV Tech over breakfast the other morning went something like this. He brought up the fact that EMT-IVTs could administer Narcan to reverse heroin OD’s or other narcotic overdoses. His statement to that was that they ought to be then able to give Morphine for pain control “since we already carry the reversing agent” (in case they give the patient too much or the patient has a reaction). My thoughts are that they should not be able to, because the administration of a narcotic for anything requires a requisite knowledge of the pharmacologic, physiological, and social actions of the drug. And while yes, that could be covered in a module I could assume, why should it be? I brought up that it takes physicians years of experience to be able to tell how to identify drug seekers who want to get a high from the legal, medically prescribed narcotic. Contemporary medical journals in family practice and emergency medicine have written volumes on the topic, and still physicians can be fooled. The extrapyramidal reactions possible with morphine, including respiratory and other Central-Nervous-System (CNS) depressing features of the drug have other treatments and symptoms that can be hard to recognize for an inexperienced provider. An EMT-IVT just doesn’t have the breadth of background knowledge needed in order to judiciously use the drug safely in all cases. The fact that most of the time it would work out fine does not withstand the certain percentage of patients that could and would be harmed. I ended the argument with him by bringing up something that I’ve always remembered from paramedic school. Our lead instructor told us that our drug bag was nothing but “A big bag full of poison” if you didn’t know how to use it.

Remember, every single time any medical care provider performs any treatment of any kind on a patient they’re making the statement that “Right now, I know better than your body does. I know better than your brain, your nervous system, and better than all of your body’s self healing systems do what you need to keep living and get better”. Any time you put on a bandage, you’re telling that patient that you know better than their body does that they need to stop bleeding. Every time a paramedic or other provider uses an airway management technique they’re saying that they know how to breathe better for the patient than the patient’s own body does. Every time you give a medication to a patient you’re telling them that you know how best to control their body’s systems. Think about it. Every treatment, every time. It is a HUGE deal to be able to do this stuff, and you dang well better know your stuff.

Physicians are rooted in the quest for knowledge. Their reputation as learned individuals goes back to prehistory in one form or another. They’ve earned their vaulted place in society due to their quest for knowledge and reason and their caring for others above all else. EMS people came from physicians. I can think of no other medical profession that has a downward pressure on their educational standards. I’m saying that, because I think that EMS does. We have elements in our own ranks, and external forces that are continuously working to make us into skills monkeys that can be paid very little and know very little.

This is a big statement: Not everyone can be a good paramedic or EMT. It takes a certain intellect, sound ethical reasoning skills, and a level of professionalism that not everyone can attain.

This is another big statement: There are groups in our society that want to make it so that any random idiot can become a basically qualified one. This keeps us all down and lowers the quality of patient care… a lot.

Yet another: Us good EMS people should be really ticked off that educational standards are so dang low these days. Fight for excellence. Respect ourselves.

If you and or your service want to be able to perform advanced skills, earn the requisite knowledge through your studies and earn the level that it takes to do them. Enough is enough. I don’t believe that we should lower any more educational standards. No other group would do this, not the nurses, not the PA’s, and certainly not the physicians. Why should we? Yes, I understand that with the advent of Urban Fire Based EMS the IAFF and IAFC want to put more paramedics on the streets to increase their influence and their revenues, and that in order to do this they need to match the intellectual skills of medics with the intellectual skills needed to be a good grunt firefighter, but EMS is a MEDICAL profession built from the quest for knowledge. It should not be relegated to the technical performance of skills if X equals Y.

Heck, I think that the current level of Paramedic should be the basic level, and that Paramedics should be as independent as Physician Assistants. In fact, I’d like to see that in the future.

Posted by on March 11, 2010 • Filed under: Ambulance, ckemtp rants, dave barry, edemse, Emergency Medical Services, ems 2.0, ems education, EMS ethics, EMS rant, EMS Topics, EMT, EMT-Intermediate, Ethics, everyday ems ethics, IV, Paramedic, paramedic education, physician

Are We the Gatekeepers to the Emergency Healthcare System? – EMS 2.0

13 comments

Did I do good?

The Chronicles of EMS, if you’re living under a rock and you haven’t heard, is a cooperative effort between the Great Filmmaker Thaddeus Setla (EMSmedia.tv), the Remarkably Strong Paramedic Mark Glencourse (Medic999), and the “Ruggedly Handsome” firefighter/paramedic Justin Schorr (The Happy Medic). Their cooperative venture has taught me things that I’ve put to use in my own EMS practice that I believe have improved my care. Mark showed me the UK’s “Front Loaded” model and Justin has been talking about EMS providers being a gatekeeper to the emergency healthcare system. It’s a powerful collaboration. (Be sure to follow #CoEMS on twitter and become a fan of Chronicles of EMS on Facebook as well)

So here’s an example of what I mean. I can talk about this now because it’s been long enough that I can sufficiently muddle any possible trace back to the patient and fulfill any patient confidentiality concerns. I work in two very diverse service areas and cover approximately 35 different skilled nursing facilities at any one time. So in the time since the Chronicles of EMS has come out I’ve transported umpteen-hundred patients from those facilities and the patient I’m writing about could be any of those umpteen hundred. So there’s no way to violate confidentiality, Mmmm ‘Kay? 

Anyway, some time ago I was dispatched as the ALS response to backup a BLS ambulance for the “unresponsive” patient at a skilled nursing facility. I arrived a few seconds after the ambulance did and carried my drug bag and EKG/Defib into the facility with the ambulance crew following close behind with their jump kit, the cot, and a backboard. After a few seconds in the facility, a staff member directed me to the Physical Therapy area of the facility which was a bit of a walk. When I got there, I saw three other staff members huddled around an elderly female patient who was seated in a reclining chair.

The staff members were fairly excited about the situation, as was the patient, who was very much conscious and alert. The story everyone told me at once was that the patient had finished her physical therapy session on her upper body to strengthen her shoulders and had been sat in the chair by the PT Assistant to rest. After a few minutes, the PT asst. came to check on the patient and found her unresponsive to verbal stimuli, by which I mean that the patient would not awake when spoken to. The PT asst. called the facility’s emergency response team and another staff member activated 911. When one of the nurses arrived, the patient awoke to a sternal rub and was quite surprised to be the subject of so much attention. She had been fully alert and cognitive since that time and when I asked her she denied any chief complaint other than being understandably emotional about the situation.

As I do with every patient after I rule out any immediate life threats I moved into a more detailed assessment. My lady here had skin that was Pink, Warm, and dry. Her pupils were PERRL and her Cincinatti Pre-hospital stroke scale was negative. Her Lungs were clear, her abdomen was soft and non-tender with normoactive bowel sounds, and her extremities were warm and had good pulses, motor, and sensation. Her blood glucose was well within limits, and so were all of her vital signs. All of my other assessment findings were not indicative of any acute abnormalities other than a complaint of slight shoulder pain and weakness which could have been indicative of either an acute MI or of a rigorous PT session. So, to be even more thorough, I hooked her up to my 5-lead EKG which showed normal sinus rhythm with some peaked T-waves. I then ran a 12-lead EKG which was admittedly probably better than mine is.

I asked the nurse “Has she had a potassium level drawn recently?” She looked through the patient’s chart and found out that the patient in fact had been tested for that two days prior and had been found to have a slightly elevated serum potassium level. Since they had been active witnesses to my assessment we agreed that other than for perhaps a bit too much potassium there was little chance of anything being wrong with the patient.

Since we were here in the US and not in the UK like Mark, where he can treat and release (or “Respond, not Convey”) I asked the patient if she wanted us to take her to the hospital. She didn’t want to go and said that she just wanted to go back to bed. When the staff members weren’t completely convinced that we shouldn’t transport her, I suggested that they call the patient’s primary care physician to ask him what his wishes were. The nurse did so, and called from her cell phone in front of us. She did a good job of explaining in detail the events of the call and our collective assessment findings, I provided my interpretation of the 12-lead EKG and chimed in with my assessment findings that I use in my acute care practice.

For his part, the doctor was amenable to treating the patient at the facility and stated that he was comfortable with us not transporting the patient. He ordered a few stat labs and requested that we leave a copy of the 12-lead for the patient’s chart, which I was happy to do. Bottom line: The patient signed a refusal and was happy not to have to go to the hospital; The skilled-nursing-facility staff members were happy that the patient was in no immediate danger; and I was happy that we had made the best possible decision for the patient and that I wasn’t exposing her to unnecessary risk.

What happened here is exactly one of the things that I and others have been talking about with the EMS 2.0 movement: EMS people having the ability to make an educated and sound decision about the best possible healthcare options for our patients and not simply having to activate the full emergency healthcare system for every complaint. This case had every element of that and I believe that the patient being redirected through her normal primary healthcare pathway was a much better choice than taking her to the emergency room.

Heck, since there turned out to be no adverse results to this, and since the patient was probably on Medicare, I would surmise that I’ve ended up saving the taxpayers thousands of dollars in unneccesary costs… Huh? Can educating and empowering paramedics “save” the healthcare system in the US by creating a huge savings in the most expensive form of providing healthcare?

What do you think? Did I do good?

QGE5GE5AAH4W

Posted by on January 21, 2010 • Filed under: change, edemse, EKG, Emergency Medical Services, EMS, ems 2.0, ems education, EMS ethics, EMS Topics, Ethics, everyday ems ethics, medical ethics, new perspective, patient care, Patient Management, physician, politics, potential, Skilled Nursing Facility, US economy

Expanding Our Career Options – Non-Traditional EMS Jobs

16 comments

In my decade or so working in EMS, I’ve had the chance to ply my paramedic skills in more places than the back of an ambulance. I’ve been employed as an ER technician, which is of course the usual suspect for a paramedic looking to move their career options from more than just “The back of the truck” and “the front of the truck”, I’ve been employed as a security guard *slash* paramedic for a hospital chain that ran an ambulance service using their security department, and I’ve worked as a paramedic in an urgent care clinic. I think that EMTs and paramedics can and should expand their career options and that to do so, we’ve got to take a few collective steps.

The professional knowledge, skills, and abilities held by a paramedic combined with the unique personal characteristics of successful EMS people makes our profession a valuable resource to a wide variety of potential employers. These employers, beyond the traditional ambulance services, fire departments, and emergency healthcare providers, stand to benefit greatly from opening their hiring processes to paramedics, as does our profession and the general public. Imagine one day that you’ll type in the word “Paramedic” into your favorite job search engine and have more options available to you than you’ve ever thought possible. Imagine that one day when you’ve progressed to a point in your career where the prospect of getting up at all hours of the day and night no longer sounds like a good idea you would be able to get a job that is a better fit to your personality and your unique set of side skills. I say that our ability to improvise, to think quickly on our feet, and to make solid decisions based upon our knowledge base and experiences in the face of limited and evolving information are useful to business in this day and age. 

At the urgent care clinic where I worked, there rarely was a call for my advanced life support skills. Rather we had the run-of-the mill cases that would come into the clinic for immediate-access primary care. My skills at patient history-taking, assessment, triage, and bandaging got a work-out. So did my skills in relating to patients on a personal level and interfacing with patients and their families across the demographic spectrum. I also learned how to prepare, acquire, and process various laboratory tests including point-of-care testing for common conditions and how to properly obtain and prepare samples for advanced labs. Surprisingly perhaps, I got a great deal more practice drawing-up, mixing, and administering medications more so than I ever have in the field. Working with the doctors greatly improved my skills as a diagnostician and has helped me immeasurably in my ambulance practice. (Yes, I said “my ambulance practice”) I highly recommend for both Urgent Care Clinics as well as for paramedics to explore this wonderful partnership. 

What that experience taught me is that I could “fit” into that job description as a paramedic, it also taught me that there was a learning curve in moving out of the ambulance arena and into a clinical one. In my secret squirrel job that I don’t put out here on the blog, I use my healthcare background as a statistician and data management guru of sorts to help make decisions for a large organization assisting a lot of smaller ones and dealing with a lot of people. There was a learning curve there too, but my experience as a paramedic with knowledge of the real-world of healthcare makes a huge difference and brings a lot to the table. Nurses have expanded into this role for quite a while, and a lot of organizations from Education to Public health employ nurses in a lot of capacities apart from their traditional role as a bedside caregiver. Paramedics and EMTs can and should do this as well.

Previously, I had envisioned a certification as a “Clinical Paramedic” to provide paramedics with the knowledge and skills required to function in a physician’s office setting. I still believe that having additional certifications that build upon our initial licensure and education is the way to go. Imagine that once you attain your initial paramedic education there would be multiple educational options for you to choose from that would lead to a wide variety of career paths. You could be a “Public Health” paramedic working in the inner city to improve health standards and access to care, you could be a “Clinical Paramedic” staffing a clinic, working in primary or specialty healthcare, or you could be some type of “Specialty Paramedic” working perhaps as a liaison with children with special healthcare needs for a community organization. The possibilities are literally endless if we dare to explore our options and trumpet our strengths as a profession to the masses.

In order to do this, we’ll have to fall back on the “We Need More Education” answer as well as exploring how our licensing bodies will have to modify our legal scope of practice to allow us to function in these roles. I’m afraid that we’ll have to fight to “own” our licenses like the nurses do (and AmboDriver, you could weigh in on this) but the fight will be worth it.

I’d love to hear from my readers about how they apply their EMS skills in a manner outside of our traditional role. This is a subject area where I believe our brethren in the volunteer part of our industry can assist us greatly in explaining how their EMS training helps them in their primary occupation. If you are an EMT, Paramedic, jump in and help move us forward. What would do as a medic and what would you like to be doing tomorrow?

Posted by on January 18, 2010 • Filed under: Ambulance, change, Emergency Medical Services, EMS, ems 2.0, EMS Management, EMS Topics, EMT-Intermediate, EMT-Paramedic Specialist, ER, new perspective, Paramedic, paramedic education, physician, potential, profession, salary

Paramedics Providing Physicals? Decreasing Healthcare Costs and Improving Care – EMS 2.0

23 comments

Sitting down at your station one night finishing paperwork, you’re startled from your daydreaming by a knock at the door. You get up, and answer it to find one of the off-duty firemen from the town standing there at the door. He looks like heck warmed-over. He’s pale, sweaty, and his respiratory rate is elevated. He says He’s “Glad it’s you on tonight” and that he feels worse than he looks. He asks if you can “Check him out” since you’re “all medical and stuff”.

Treating this like a walk-in medical call, you help the guy walk into the back of the ambulance and have him sit on the bench seat. Your fire and EMS departments aren’t connected so you’re not really on a first name basis with the guy, but you know him from sight and know him from seeing him around the town on calls and social things and such. He just looks sick, he says that he’s having a bit of trouble breathing and that he feels like he’s freezing one minute and hot the next. He also says that he’s been coughing up “all kinds of stuff” for the last few days.

Putting on your best caring EMS provider face, you begin your assessment. He’s a 26yo Male patient in generally good health and with good appearance other than for right now. His skin is very warm and moist to the touch and he seems to have a fever. His pulse is rapid and bounding at around 120bpm, but that decreases after a few minutes of rest as does his respirations. He states that for the last few days he’s been sick. It started with a sore throat and some sinus gook and now has “gotten into his chest”. You listen to his lungs and hear some diminished sounds in the bases bilaterally with diffuse rhonchi throughout.  His abdomen is soft and non-tender but says that he’s had some mild bouts of diarrhea. He complains of exertional dyspnea and his BP is way high at 184/98. His temperature is 101.4 degrees F taken at the tympanic membrane.

So based upon the assessment, you’re thinking that he’s got a respiratory infection, probably bronchitis. Just because you can, you run a 12-lead EKG which is otherwise normal other than for the sinus tachycardia. His pulse ox is 94% on room air. He says that he doesn’t have insurance and that he can’t afford the emergency room, but that he’s willing to pay for a visit to the urgent care doctor if you think he should go in.

Now, faced with the above, as I have been a few times in my career, you have a few options here. You could do what we’re supposed to do by the book and recommend transport to the ER even though you know the guy’s condition probably isn’t life threatening right now. You could also tell him that you think that he may have a respiratory infection and that while he should see the doctor as soon as he can, that he probably doesn’t need the emergency room.

(Remember, we’re talking about today’s protocols, not the ones I want that I posted in “The Current US Economy and EMS – An In-depth look at how this mess will affect 911 in your community”)

Usually, I choose to tell my buddies that they should consult their regular doctors or go to an urgent care clinic instead of going to the ER. Sure, in cases where I thought they had a life threat or needed immediate care above the level of the local Urgent Care, I’ve transported my friends a few times. However, most of the time I give them my assessment findings written down on a piece of paper, hand them a copy of their EKG if I took one, and send them on their way to the non-ER doctor.

The last time I did this, it hit me: I’m conducting a physical when I do this. Sure, in the above case and in the cases where I’ve done this before it is a complaint-based assessment, but a patient examination is a physical exam. When I write my assessment findings on a sheet to give to the doctor, I’m writing them on a physical examination form. While my assessment isn’t as in depth as that of a physician, it certainly is better than not being examined, and a paramedic has specific training in detecting disease processes that may go undetected by a patient and their families.

(Note: In all of the cases where I did not transport the patient to the hospital, I did obtain a proper refusal form after educating the patient about their condition as best I could. They made the decision, not me.)

If you type “Annual Physical Exam” into Google, you’ll see quite a few articles about the topic, including a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine and this article published in US News and World Report basically, they say that Preventative Health Exams account for approximately 8.0% of all ambulatory care visits costing approximately $7.8 billion in health care costs. They also say that the cost of providing these services may outweigh the benefits of receiving them. In 2005, a survey of 800 Primary Care Physicians reported that 65% of them recommended an annual physical, that 74% felt that it improved early detection of illness, and that 94% felt that it improved patient-physician relationships, there is currently “No major North-American clinical medical association” that “currently recommends that health adults get a physical each year.”

So there’s a debate being held in healthcare circles. On one hand, patients probably perceive a benefit to the annual physical exam, and certainly the people who have disease processes detected and stopped with early intervention see a very tangible benefit. There are also a majority of physicians that when questioned individually state that they see a benefit to the exam. However, there is also the fact that the costs probably outweigh the benefit of the exam, even though “preventative care” is batted about in the current healthcare debate quite a bit and most organizations and physicians recommend health screenings for specific disease processes that benefit most from early detection.

My opinion is that when the cost outweighs a benefit, there is the choice to either forgo the benefit or find a way to decrease the cost. I am suggesting that we can decrease the cost to the overall healthcare system as well as increase the availability of preventive care by introducing paramedics into the debate. I believe that paramedics could provide a more than adequate annual physical examination in most cases for a large subset of the population. In fact, most of us probably already do without thinking about it. The articles state that 80% of preventive health care is provided within the context of complaint-based ambulatory care visits. I would say that paramedics in ambulances provide this care to the rest of the population. I’d also say that we provide a lot more patient education on chronic health issues to a larger segment of the underserved population than any other healthcare provider. Think about it, how many times have you personally attended to a patient who called you for a complaint such as a “fall” and upon assessment found evidence of an undiagnosed chronic condition? I have, and I like to think that with a thorough assessment on every patient, I can improve their overall health more so than just helping them with their current complaint.

To implement this plan, I would think that functionally, paramedic training already gives us a strong background to provide a detailed physical exam. We would, however, have to undergo more intensive training in examination skills and pathophysiology to be able to detect subtle underlying signs and symptoms of disease processes, mental health and substance abuse issues, and sexual health problems. I would envision that there would be a detailed and formalized set of procedures, tests, and paperwork that would be completed in full that should be pre-agreed upon with the Primary Care Physicians in an ambulance service’s wider sphere of influence. Tests such as a random fingerstick glucose, a monitor strip, and a baseline 12-lead EKG could be obtained as well as a review of the patient’s social and other risk-factors. These findings would then be forwarded to the patient’s personal physician, or could be given to the patient to bring to a physician of their choosing.

This is an easily implemented service that we could be providing our communities with tomorrow with the right planning. The chance to improve the overall health of our patients exists coupled with a chance to decrease overall healthcare costs. It’s also another potential revenue source for ambulance services, which is sorely needed in order to implement EMS 2.0 and improve the EMS profession for tomorrow. Imagine the revenue boost to your service’s and your bottom line if every crew started performing ten physicals a day for $50 a pop. It’s a bargain for the patient, but would be a boon for us.

Paramedics are underutilized for our skill sets and education, this is a way that we can further contribute to the health of our communities while improving our profession overall.

References:

US News and World Report “Do You Actually Need a Physical Exam” – http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/2007/09/24/do-you-actually-need-a-physical-exam.html

Archives of Internal Medicine “Preventive Health Examinations and Preventive Gynecological Examinations in the United States” – http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/167/17/1876

Posted by on December 8, 2009 • Filed under: Administration & Leadership, change, Economics, Emergency Medical Services, EMS, ems 2.0, EMS Blog, EMS paramedics, EMS Topics, Paramedic, patient care, Patient Management, physician, Training & Development, US economy

Guest Post – An Open Letter to Wisconsin Physicians Concerning Do-Not-Resucitate Orders

32 comments

This is a guest post written by a local paramedic that has an important message to get out about Physician involvement with Do-Not-Resuscitate (DNR) Orders. I’ve included it in its entirety. It’s an important issue. It takes such an emotional toll on the EMS providers and the families of our patients. Please share this with your colleagues and loved ones.

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An open letter to the Physicians of Wisconsin:

“Medic 1, Engine 7 respond to 123 Anystreet for a male unresponsive. Time out 21:19.” 

This simple statement spoken by a dispatcher starts a series of events that will place an EMS crew in a moral dilemma, a family in a confused and angry state, and a personal physician sitting at home, unaffected.  As the responding EMTs and Paramedics enter the home in response to this call, they see an elderly female cradling an elderly male in her arms. She is sobbing and distraught.  The elderly female holds in her hands the lifeless body of her life long partner and soul mate who seems to have finally given up his long suffering in this world.  The lead EMT quickly approaches the patient and finds that the patient is in cardiac arrest.  The female states that she always knew that he would die in her arms.  She states how long and difficult these last months have been with his terminal illness creeping into their lives and stealing her husband away.  The Lead EMT asks if the patient has a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) order. The wife states that he does.  A quick check of wrists and ankles does not produce the state approved DNR bracelet.  The EMT’s crew stares at Lead EMT looking for direction.  They know that unless there is a valid DNR bracelet on his wrist they must start CPR and perform life saving measures.  The Lead EMT knows that the clock is quickly winding down, they must act soon.  She asks the spouse again about the DNR and where it might be in the house.  The spouse states that there is a copy of the DNR at the hospital.  She states that she filled it out at the months ago at the doctor’s office.  The spouse says, “I never got a bracelet.  The doctor knows that he didn’t want anything does, can’t you call him?”

Meanwhile, a county away, a physician sits at his desk, dictating the notes of the day.  He is completely unaware of the drama that is unfolding in the darkness of night and the darkness that is enveloping one spouse’s life.  This physician has practiced medicine for years, graduating medical school in the early 1960’s.  He has been kind, caring, and concerned for every patient he has seen and is highly regarded within the medical community.  When he first started in medicine, ambulances were simply Cadillac station wagons that whisked through the night.  They moved the sick and injured from point to point without offering much more than a fast ride.  Over the decades the rules changed, medical advances occurred, and now an ambulance is a rolling emergency department with full advanced life support abilities.  Unfortunately, unless a physician takes an interest in EMS this change has occurred without notice.

The lead EMT removes the patient from his spouse’s arms.  They move him to the floor and start CPR.  The crew has no choice, they have no valid DNR order and they have been summoned by a 911 call from the spouse.  The spouse screams at and pleads with the crew to stop, she doesn’t understand why this is happening.  Her husband has filled out papers; they have them on file at the hospital.  She thought this wouldn’t happen.  The spouse watches as I.V.’s are started, defibrillator pads applied, and an endotracheal tube is placed into the airway of her spouse.  The spouse is now frantic.  This was never supposed to happen.  Why aren’t the EMT listening to her? She knows what her husband wanted, they were together for over 50 years.  Medications are now being given and the EMS crew is trying to coax a pulse out of a tired heart.  The crew shoots looks at each other questioning what is right and wrong.

The lack of a DNR order puts EMS crews in a terrible moral and ethical dilemma.  They must proceed as the law states; but their hearts are heavy and they are unsure if they are truly doing the best for the patient or the family.  They sat in on the trainings years ago about the DNR bracelet.  The instructors said it would eliminate these situations, patients would speak to their personal physicians, sign all the necessary forms, and then the patient would be issued a DNR bracelet that would clearly state the patient’s wishes.  Yet time and time again, this scenario repeats itself and each time the frustration grows.

After 45 minutes of CPR and three rounds of ACLS medication, medical control is contacted.  The ED physician is advised of the situation and advises the crew to terminate all efforts.  The crew cleans up and a mournful wife sits by her husband’s side again, holding his hand.  This is where she wanted to be all along, just holding his hand and looking for support in this darkest time in her life.  Instead, she had to witness the brutality of a full ACLS code.  The ribs breaking, the I.V.’s being placed, the monitor screaming out orders in its electronic voice.   The peaceful, honorable death she had hoped for has been taken from her, she will now have the visions of CPR and strangers doing procedures to her husband that neither of them ever wanted.  These are events that we can never go back in time and change.

Our physician is now walking to his car.  Rattling through his pocket looking for keys that he can’t seem to find.  He will receive a call later tonight from the county coroner explaining what has happened.  He will be honestly horrified to hear of the efforts by the EMS unit and will wonder why this has happened.  Ironically, he doesn’t know that he set these events in motion years ago by not securing a DNR order for his patient that EMS crews are able to honor.

“Medic 1 and Engine 7 are clear, no transport, coroner on scene.”  This will be another long ride back to the fire house.  Emotions are running high, the crew is upset.  They can’t figure what is making them angrier, the fact that this happened or the fact they know it will happen again.  The cycle continues.

I would ask that each primary care physician look into the laws as they apply to DNR orders and EMS providers in the State of Wisconsin.  We do not have the luxury of time.  We must make decisions within seconds.  We NEED the DNR bracelet.  All we need to know is “yes or no” to CPR.  We have NO time to read through long winded orders or other legal documents.  This is a problem that we must fix and fix fast. You have the power to fix this. Please do so.

Respectfully,

Todd A. Bluhm, Paramedic

Posted by on December 3, 2009 • Filed under: 911 fail, cpr, cpr fail, crisis, DNR, Do Not Resuscitate Order, Emergency Medical Services, emotions, EMS, ems 2.0, EMS ethics, EMS rant, EMS Topics, EMT, EMT-Intermediate, EMT-Paramedic Specialist, Fire Rescue Topics, medical ethics, Paramedic, patient care, Patient Management, physician, professionalism, rant, southern wisconsin

EMS 2.0 & EMS Ethics – How far would you go?

12 comments

Throughout my EMS career I’ve heard a lot of the same complaints from paramedics that seem to be endemic within the system. One of these is the quality of physician medical direction and whether or not theirs is considered “Progressive” or “Permissive” by the EMTs and Paramedics that work within the protocol system. Some systems seem almost regressive. They don’t seem to show any trust in the providers that work within the protocols and end up being putting forth “Mother-May-I” protocols that disallow aggressive field treatment and require hand holding over the radio or cell phone to a base station. Others, are fairly progressive and allow quite a bit of treatment to be provided in the field.

However, even in the more progressive of the systems out there the medics always tend to have their own personal “wish list” of things that they’d like to be permitted to do. I currently work in the most progressive protocol system I’ve ever worked in and yet there are a few things that I would like to be allowed to do further than I can do now. Toradol for pain control, and the inclusion of a paralytic to our Medication Assisted Intubation protocols would be examples.

However, there begs a question here that I haven’t seen explored before: What if this was reversed?

Say tomorrow you head on into work and get there to hear the news that your medical director up and left for Tahiti with a new love interest with whom he or she will be very happy. Incidentally, you’ve now got a new medical director that just graduated medical school after spending 10 years as a field paramedic. There’s a “Get to Know Me” meeting scheduled in a half hour,

In the meeting the new medical director, who emphatically insists that you call him “Dr. Pat”, and then changes it to “Just Pat” outlines the new protocols that you will be functioning under starting as soon as you all can get through the trainings and meetings that are scheduled. These protocols are amazing. For example, your protocols for treatment of severe asthma used to include just oxygen, nebulized albuterol, and subcutaneous epinephrine. Now you’ll be giving Albuterol mixed with atrovent for your nebulizers, Epi 1:1000 sub-q or brethine (terbutaline) sub-q, epi 1:10000 IV for severe cases, Solu-Medrol (an injectable steroid), and Magnesium Sulfate infusions for refractory cases. For pain control, you used to have to call for orders to give Morphine. Now you give Morphine in 2mg increments titrated to effect up to 20mg if the blood pressure is over 100mmhg systolic, Fentanyl 50mcg – 200mcg, Toradol 60mg IM, and/or Nitronox (Inhaled Nitrous Oxide). The protocols are really advanced and have at least twenty new medications, some of which you’ve never even heard of.

Soon after you start reading the new protocols you start noticing things that frankly, scare you a bit. Never mind the fact that you don’t know how you’re going to calculate amiodarone drips and use propofol for conscious sedation, you’re frankly scared that the protocol system directs you to perform emergent C-Sections to save a viable fetus in cases of limb presentations in pregnancy. Really?

Mannitol and induced hypothermia for head injuries? Wow. You also now have needle crics, surgical crics, Needle decompression of the chest, pericardiocentesis, retrograde intubation, and what are those words? Thoracostomy (Chest Tubes)?? Thoracotomy? Holy crap! There’s almost nothing you can’t do! 

After the meeting you head out on the streets with your partner. You’re honestly feeling a little nostalgic for the days when your Tahiti-bound regressive medical director wouldn’t let you be responsible for hardly anything. It’s completely opposite now. You’ve gone from one extreme to the other. There’s nothing that you’ve ever thought of doing in the field that you can’t do anymore.

On one hand this would be very exciting for me (and yes, I went a little overboard with plausible treatment modalities to make a point here) but on the other hand, I’d have to ask the question:

Where would be the line where progressive treatment protocols cross the line? When would be the point where paramedics are given too much responsibility for complex invasive treatments?

I’ve never seen the case I’m describing. I love working under a progressive and liberal protocol system. However, in a meeting the other day when the possibility of administering thrombolytics for refractory ventricular fibrillation in cardiac arrest came up I had a thought that I’d never had before:

“I don’t get paid enough to have that much responsibility. I take on a lot of liability and have to put in a lot of uncompensated education time for the meager wage that I get paid now… how much is that going to have to increase for no more money?”

I don’t want to think that way, and I’d have to question the dedication of any paramedic in any of the protocol systems that I’ve examined that would say no to being able to provide potentially lifesaving treatments to their patients. I can’t imagine refusing to do something because I didn’t think that I was compensated enough to take on the responsibility of doing it. I’d be happy to sit through the required education, but I doubt that they would increase the compensation of the medics in the above example.

Could it happen? Has it happened? Will it happen as treatments progress and professional responsibility increases? I’ll firmly say that I’m nowhere near adequately compensated for the responsibility I have today. Where would I be if the above scenario happened to me tomorrow?

EMS 2.0 needs to seek out and find answers to the questions that we haven’t asked yet just as much as we need to find answers to the questions we’ve been struggling with for years.

What do you think?

Posted by on October 18, 2009 • Filed under: Als, change, edemse, Emergency Medical Services, EMS, ems 2.0, EMS ethics, EMS protocols, ems salary, EMS Topics, EMS training, Ethics, everyday ems ethics, medical ethics, Paramedic, paramedic education, patient care, Patient Management, physician, politics, SMG, SMO
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