“Rampart, Medic 13 with an incoming patient report.” “Go ahead, 13.” “I have a patient with a pulse of 120. ETA less than 10 minutes. Over.” Well, this sort of report certainly leaves something to be desired. What is the age of the patient? For an infant, this may be a normal rate, but in a […]

The use of  lights and sirens is supposed to clear traffic by warning drivers or pedestrians that a public safety vehicle is approaching in emergency mode. The expectation is that the use of warning devices increases the safety of both the patient and provider by reducing travel time in responding to a scene or while […]

I recently had two articles published by EMS1 as a couple of “mythbusting primers” on the topic of dynamic deployment. The articles were Dynamic deployment: 5 persistent myths busted and Dynamic deployment: 5 more persistent myths busted. My intention was not to convince anyone of a position that opposes their current EMS world view pertaining to deployment models, but I had hoped […]

The following is a preview of a book coming soon from Bradshaw Consulting Services to be titled “Closest Vehicle Dispatch: A Primer for Fire” which is a follow-up to “Dynamic Deployment: A Primer for EMS”. Watch for the new release in time for the FDIC 2017 conference at the end of April. The modern legal […]

An awful lot can happen in five years. I know that my own understanding of EMS deployment has deepened a great deal in that time. It was that long ago that I wrote a post about The Cost of Saving Money using Lexington County, SC, as an example. The county EMS Director, Brian Hood, and the now-retired […]

Anyone who follows my posts here, or on Twitter, will recognize that I consistently argue for the value of prompt responses by emergency vehicles to nearly all incidents. However, this post will be different thanks to an inventive challenge through EMS Basics asking bloggers to consider an opposing view to their favorite topic. You can read […]

It certainly appears that suicide among EMS providers is on the increase. All too often we read articles like this one from Canada citing anecdotes and making promises. We know that the work is demanding and routinely exposes providers to critical incident stress. It is also no secret that all too often, the providers who face these […]

Of course “Black Lives Matter.” Just like white ones, red ones, blue ones, and every other color that we place as a ‘label’ on a life. All. Lives. Matter. But that isn’t the end of the story. Martin Luther King, Jr’s vision was not just about ending racism, but about stopping every form of intolerance […]

When EMS professionals complain, the justification often includes an appraisal of how our family in the ‘big red trucks’ do (or sometimes, don’t do) things instead of comparing ourselves to our brothers and sisters that make up that ‘thin blue line’. The choice of comparison is most likely swayed by the fact that somewhere around half of us working in EMS do […]

As we go about our routine business each shift, it can be easy to forget that we are involved in a field of healthcare that is still relatively young. Our history as a unique discipline has only recently been documented through the efforts of  the National EMS Museum, which is itself just in its infancy. […]