There is plenty of talk about “evidence-based procedures” in EMS lately. Well, today I read an interesting article that shows a link between being busier and better patient outcomes. Okay…, now after reading that statement, what just happened to your heart rate? Was your automatic response to click the link in order find fault so you can dismiss the finding, […]

Ideas often take time to saturate a market. Even if the idea is generally recognized as a good one, complete with compelling evidence, change can still take time.  As a current example, how many agencies still have a protocol for complete spinal immobilization on a long spine board for “any fall” or “significant impact”?  On that very […]

Just because a majority of calls can wait, doesn’t mean they should wait or that every other call we will take would be similar.

Okay, now that you know what really happened [at the NENA 2013 conference], here is my take.

Take the recent events that have happened and let them make you more aware, not more afraid. Work with others to help them understand the real-world of “scene safety” and practice it in every call.

One aspect of improving performance is responding appropriately in less time – not necessarily just responding “faster.” Technology must be evaluated by “outcome” just as patient treatments are being qualified and improved.

The increasing demand for healthcare services which threatened their ability to maintain response times is another example of what motivates the Cetronia mindset of continual improvement and motivating them to become a High Performance EMS.

The best possible response time for any emergency is immediate.  This is no simple theoretical goal, but a physical reality everywhere that a Public Safety Dispatcher, using standard Emergency Medical Dispatch protocols, can be reached by phone.  These calm “voices of hope” quickly perform an initial triage to determine the type of medical or trauma situation being reported, dispatch appropriate […]

While there were many comments on the question of “what does High Performance EMS mean to you?”, I would like to focus on the assertion that measuring response time is not an “evidence-based” practice.