Two weeks ago, we started a Community of Practice to discuss EMS Deployment. The larger issue of deploying resources is all about efficiency and effectiveness in care, those are also the aims of any High Performance EMS group. However, that message is too often confused with meaning simply “better, faster, cheaper”, when in practice it […]

As I was going to be in Dallas for the Fire Rescue conference, I decided to go a little early and pay a visit to MedStar Mobile Healthcare (the renown “birthplace of Mobile Integrated Healthcare”) just over in Fort Worth, Texas.  For anyone who may not have been paying attention to the industry during the last […]

In our recently published book, “Dynamic Deployment: A Primer for EMS“, John Brophy and I established a dichotomy between the standards of static deployment and dynamic deployment in the very first chapter.  Fortunately, that strong polar perspective has spurred some interesting discussions for me. While the check-out lane analogy was effective in distinguishing some of the differences of static […]

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.