Are you riding?

Good afternoon OEMS blog fans. It has been a while since we posted, but I am here to fill the void. First and foremost, Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! You are greatly appreciated! The next item that the OEMS bloggers wanted to discuss is the National EMS Memorial Bike Ride.

It starts on May 17th in New York City and will end on May 23rd in Roanoke, VA. The Office is working with the riders to help them set up rest stops along their route at various EMS agencies. If you get a call from us, or the riders, please help. The riders need breaks and some yummy treats from you to help them keep their energy and accomplish their mission. Also, if they are riding past your agency, please go outside and give them a shout out to show your support! For where and when they will be visit http://www.muddyangels.org/ or e-mail elizabeth.singer@vdh.virginia.gov for more info.

Our very own Tim Perkins will pick up the ride in Virginia and try to keep up and not hurt himself! Seriously, we are proud of Tim and his devotion to bringing attention to EMS providers who have fallen in the line of duty.

The ride ends in Roanoke, because on the 24th the National EMS Memorial Service will be held. Click here for more info http://www.nemsms.org/. We need to Fill the Church this year! It is a year with a record number of people being inducted. These people are our brothers and sisters in EMS, and we need to be there to show our respect and to honor their sacrifice.

The OEMS bloggers hope to see you at the service or on the route of the bike ride!

Stressed? Go to the beach!

Wouldn’t it be nice to go to Virginia Beach during May 27 - 31st? The sun should be shining, the water should be warming up and the Office of EMS will be there for the Annual CISM Conference!

 

We all know that the demands of being an EMS provider, administrator or dispatcher can be stressful. But what happens when the stress becomes too much, or the next call you go on is one that you just can’t get over? Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM - as we all commonly refer to it as), is a program that allows EMS providers, firefighters, police officers and other public safety professionals to deal with a stressful situation through debriefing and other methods that help diffuse the situation. The daily stressors can build up which can lead to job burn out and serious health issues, so it is important to learn how to deal with them in a healthy way.

 

The CISM Conference is featuring classes like the Post Critical Incident Seminar that will allow people to talk about the worst of the worst and learn how to better deal with stress. Also, there is a class on Healthy Living and Stress Management that will talk about some fun things like massage, deep breathing and even acupuncture and yoga!

 

For this OEMS blogger, there are two classes in particular that I am very interested in sitting in on. The first is Line of Duty Death:Fallen Fire Fighters, which will feature members of the Charleston, SC Fire Department discussing how they dealt with the loss of nine of their own in 2007. The other class is the Virginia Tech Panel that will explore the process of providing CISM in the aftermath of the tragedy and the lessons learned.

 

For those of you who are interested in CISM or becoming part of a team, we will have the training classes that you will need.

 

Be sure to visit the OEMS Web site to learn more about CISM and to register for the conference today www.vdh.virginia.gov/oems!

 

Stay safe out there!

Office of EMS Survey Will Determine Efficacy of State Trauma Triage Plan

The Office of EMS Division of Trauma/Critical Care is conducting a statewide survey on trauma triage. 2,500 participants were selected at random from all currently certified EMS providers in Virginia. The goal of the survey is to assess the level of self efficacy that providers possess in regards to implementing the trauma triage program. For example, OEMS is trying to find out things like if providers are comfortable enough with trauma triage to bypass a community hospital to go directly to a trauma center.

 

This survey is timely in that the general assembly just passed a bill (HB479 and SB344) to begin developing a statewide stroke triage program. Trauma/Critical care has been tasked with developing the stroke triage program, and it is an ideal time to determine whether our trauma triage program has been accomplishing what it should.

 

Be sure to watch your mailbox to see if you were one of the lucky ones selected to fill out this survey. If you have questions please call the office at 800-523-6019 (VA only).

Web-Based Continuing Education

Once upon a time, Warren Short—the Training Manager for the Office of EMS—promised a small group of EMT-Instructors and ALS-Coordinators that the Office was working on a process to allow continuing education (CE) earned online through third party vendors to be electronically received and applied to their CE Report. 

Warren spent months—which soon turned into years—developing the interface that would be necessary to import CE records electronically.  Once the interface was complete, Warren declared this and all things in the EMS Kingdom to be good.  Only now he found himself to be lonely.  “Would there be a vendor out there in the real world that could make this new interface work?” Warren pondered. At the same time all this work was being done, instructors and coordinators would call the Office and ask: “Is it here yet? Is it here yet?”   Only to be told: “No, not yet.”  After hearing this response for several years, instructors and coordinators alike fell into a state of disbelief.

Then suddenly, in early March of 2008, a nice lady named Nicole from 24-7EMS.com called the Office and inquired about providing CE records electronically to the Office of EMS.  The nice lady said: “If you give me a week, I promise I can make the interface work.”  Warren and his staff were in a state of shock.  “Could it really be done?” exclaimed Tom.  “No way, they can’t make it work in less than a week.” stated Greg.  “Yeah right, I’ll believe it when I see it!” said Chad.

Soon Nicole and the whole team at 24-7 EMS started working frantically to make the interface Warren built work.  They toiled for two long days.  On the morning of the third day, Nicole called the Office and said: “Warren, we have completed our work, the system is ready to test.”  Hearing this word, Warren promptly fainted and fell from his chair onto the hard floor below.   When Warren woke up, he was pleased to learn that his staff had worked all through the night and into the next day testing the system.  Nicole was right, the system worked.  Warren was very pleased.

The moral of this story is: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.

Welcome!

This is the first of many blog entries by the Office of EMS bloggers. We hope that this will be a useful site for EMS providers and agencies. Blog topics will range from training, regulations, the latest news and much more. Information here will be updated on a weekly basis (sometimes more or less, depending on what we have to say), so we hope to see your pretty faces here often. If you have questions or comments, you are free to leave comments or e-mail the bloggers. Please note, if the comments aren’t clean or something that make your mother blush, then please don’t post it or we reserve the right to delete it.

We hope that you all enjoy the blog and get some great information from it!