Alerts

With the official start of summer undoubtedly pools will be in heavy use. Here are some vital safety tips to prevent drowning accidents from occurring:

• Never leave a child alone near water to answer the phone, the doorbell, go to the bathroom, attend to another child or attend to household chores, even for a few seconds
• Keep a constant eye on children playing in or near any body of water, wading pool, public pool, bathtub or lake. Do not assume that because there is a lifeguard on duty that your child is safe and does not need to be watched
• Fence your pool on all four sides with a barrier that is at least 5 feet high. Move lawn chairs, tables and other potential climbing aids away from the fence to help keep children out
• Any gate or door leading to the pool area should be self-closing and self-latching, opening outward, with the latch placed on the pool side out of reach
• Keep reaching and throwing aids, such as poles and life preservers, on both sides of the pool
• All non-swimmers should always wear approved personal flotation devices when they are near water
• Swimming lessons do not insure safety. About 25% of all young drowning victims have had swimming lessons. A child who falls into water unexpectedly will panic and forget his swimming skills
• It is crucial that you and all of your child’s caretakers can swim and know how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in an emergency. Immediate CPR could prevent death or massive brain damage

Jamie Davis covered drowning and near drownings in MedicCast Epsiode 222. I highly recommend you give it a listen to improve your clinical understanding of drowning and near drowning victims

This year my blogger friend Dan has organized a fund raising walk for The Joseph Salmon Trust, a charity in the United Kingdom that is doing important work by offering financial support for those who have lost a child. I think the work this charity does is phenomenal and I had planned on joining this pilgrimage with a cause, but due to unforseen circumstances we’ll only be able to support the walk from this side of the pond. You can donate directly to the trust via my Just Giving Page, or you can just help spread the word about the Trust’s mission whether it be through e-mail, blog posts, Facebook, and/or Twitter. Anything you can do is a help. Thanks.

The recent flooding in Tennessee and Kentucky, most notably in the City of Nashville, brings back memories of that little storm called Katrina that happened nearly 5 years ago. While it would be nice to think that we learned our lessons from that disaster, the fact the national media has virtually ignored the story for 3 days is a bad omen that history will be repeating itself yet again… seeing as how it already just did.

Hurricane Preparedness Week is May 23 – May 29 this year, and Craig Fugate has already released this YouTube video appealing that citizens take responsible action and prepare for the potential of a devastating natural disaster:

Preparedness is something we need to do as both on an individual level as well as an Agency level. Failing to do so will only further prove that we have learned nothing from our past missteps.

Let’s collectively not let that happen.

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One of the reasons that EMS Week community outreach is becoming more important is the slew of Social Media being created that represents us in a less than fashionable light.

Here is a video from two PROCare Mobile Response employees that is on YouTube that came up as a related video for another video about EMS:

So let’s take a quick look at how PROCare Mobile Response has seemingly failed to inservice their employees about safe behavior, let alone Social Media:

• The partner is not wearing a seatbelt
• The use of foul and offensive language doesn’t help their professional image, that of PROCare Mobile Response, or EMS as a whole
• The driver is operating the vehicle while videotaping his partner, which is a classic example of unsafe distracted driving if ever there was one

Do you want to know the really scary part of this video? It was uploaded in March of 2008. It makes me wonder how much negative and unprofessional media is actually already out there. More importantly, how much media with negative overtones will be created without EMS Agencies providing their responders with proper guidance?

Does your EMS Agency have a Social Media Policy? If not, here is a Social Media Guide For First Responder Agencies

I don’t know what it is about this week.

Maybe it’s just the karma of things coming together in odd little snipets.

Kind of like this news from Reynolds which really doesn’t bold well for that whole socialized medicine argument.

Then again… it’s not like that same exact thing is happening here in the United States under the disguise of Medicare funding cuts…

Yeah right.

And those weren’t the droids he was looking for either…

This Monday there will be a blood drive at the TransCare Garage located at 25 14th Street, Brooklyn. The blood drive is in honor of Liam Matthew Gorman, the son of Paramedic/CIC Anthony Gorman.

Over the years I’ve had the privledge of working with Tony (aka Doc Croc) in a bunch of different settings. We’ve worked Warped Tours together, transport tours together, 911 tours together, and four years ago he was a vital part of the Task Force I lead to Texas for Hurricane Rita relief. It was during that deployment that Liam initially became ill, and was later diagnosed with Diamond Blackfan Anemia. There are less than 600 people diagnosed with this form of anemia, and the treatment requires a red cell transfusion every 2-3 weeks in order for Liam to survive.

If you are unable to make it to the Brooklyn Blood Drive, go to any NY Regional Blood Center and use Liam’s Group Number: 18159

More Information: Diamond Blackfan Anemia

In response to the Influenza Vaccine shortage New York State Department of Health Commissioner Doctor Richard F. Daines has instructed NYS Healthcare Providers to use vaccinations with a higher mercury level than previously considered safe for use as ordered by New York State Public Health Law Section 2112.

In a letter dated October 29, Dr. Daines points to the vaccination shortage as the primary reason why these vaccines that were disqualified for use previously because of the mercury level from the vaccine preservative Thimerosal. The FDA and CDC have encouraged all vaccine manufacturers to cease using Thimerosal since 1999. It is important to note that the recommended consumption amount has been based on methyl mercury toxicity levels and Thimerosal is actually a derivative of ethyl mercury. The FDA continues to recommend that pregnant women, women of childbearing age who may become pregnant, nursing mothers and young children do not consume certain kinds of fish that may contain high levels of methylmercury, the same at risk groups from the H1N1 Influenza Virus.

While the letter does instruct providers that informed consent is required for vaccinations, and consent should only be given to patients and parents authorized to provide consent, this does not change the fact that the NYS DOH has probably now stricken parents and pregnant women with the fear of mercurial poisoning from a vaccine that is already hotly debated.

More Information: Thimerosal in Vaccines from the FDA

Download: NYS DOH Thimerosal Waiver Letter

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The New York Times is reporting that an acting New York Supreme Court Justice has issued a restraining order temporarily halting the mandation of the controversial H1N1 Vaccine for New York State Healthcare workers.

The restraining order was issued by Acting New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas J. McNamara in response to a lawsuit filed by three Albany Medical Center nurses who state that the mandation is a violation of their civil rights, and merged their lawsuit along with two other similar suits from New York State United Teachers Union and New York State Public Employees Federation.

The New York State Department of Health is planning to fight the restraining order, and has cited that the state has upheld similar requirements for vaccinations such as Rubella and Tuberculosis.

Justice McNamara will hold a hearing on October 30 regarding all three of the cases that he merged together.

The vaccine mandation was signed into law on August 13, 2009. It affected EMTs and Paramedics employed or contracted by healthcare facilities while free standing municipal agencies were apparently exempt due to the verbage used.

Source: New York Times Blogs

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There has recently been discussion in the news about New York State mandating that healthcare providers receive the H1N1 Vaccination. Title: Subpart 66-3 – Health care facility personnel – influenza vaccination requirements provides the following definition for “Personnel” affected by the mandation:

(b) “Personnel” means all persons employed or affiliated with a healthcare facility, whether paid or unpaid, including but not limited to employees, members of the medical staff, contract staff, students, and volunteers, who either have direct contact with patients or whose activities are such that if they were infected with influenza, they could potentially expose patients, or others who have direct contact with patients, to influenza;

This verbage essentially requires private and hospital based EMS services (31 agencies in New York City alone) to vaccinate their EMTs and Paramedics since they would be considered as either employed by the healthcare facility or contracted by them. Volunteer agencies and municipal agencies are not included in this verbage and are therefore exempt from the state mandation.

State Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines M.D. wrote an open letter on the subject, and was responded to with an open letter from a group of healthcare workers against the mandatory vaccinations. With the verbage of the law being pretty clear, EMTs and Paramedics will have direct contact with patients throughout a healthcare facility in the performance of their duties, and are therefore included.

I know that there are alot of people upset by this. Some are upset because they have lost the choice to decide for themselves. Some are upset because they don’t feel the vaccine is safe, have families they need to provide for, and can’t afford for something to go wrong. I truly understand both these positions and I can understand the strong desire to want to decline.

It’s important to remember that this is NOT being mandated by the services, but by the State Government. There are plenty of precedents to the government doing something like this, such as the polio and rubella vaccine requirements to attend elementary school. While there are religious and medical exemptions available for those vaccines and it may very well be possible to get a medical exemption for this vaccine, where does that put you? This has been declared a pandemic situation so just because you get a medical exemption from receiving the vaccine does not mean that healthcare facilities need to let you in to care for their patients. How are you going to do your job (and get paid) to provide for your family then?

Honestly, I think this is overkill. I think the signing of this bill illustrates why Governor David Patterson has an approval rating practically in the negatives. Personally I will be letting my vote for whoever decides to be his opponent speak as to my displeasure of his draconian methods. Until then, when the vaccine is available and since I’m mandated to get it, then I’ll take it.

Chances of this law getting overturned? Slim to none. Of course, if healthcare workers were really serious about protesting this… they would organize a Facebook Group just like the EMS Professionals Against NBC’s Trauma… because you know… it may be a bad thing to force treatment onto someont… but it’s a worse thing when medics are hot blondes.

NYS Health Care Personnel Influenza Vaccination Requirements

NYSDOH Health Advisory H1N1 Vaccine

I first heard about this yesterday while listening to TWiT 207 and Greg Friese was also nice enough to point it out. A Texas based company called TechRadium™ is suing Twitter over the “process for simultaneously notifying large numbers of people about emergencies through multiple communication gateways, such as cell phones, pagers and e-mail.[1]” TechRadium™ is the creator of a proprietary system called IRIS© that they sell to organizations, public safety agencies, and of course governments.

The Issue According To TechRadium™, Is Us

The supposed issue at hand are TechRadium™’s patent numbers 7,130,389 filed in April 2005, 7,496,183 filed in December of 2007, and 7,519,165 filed April 2009 [2]. These patents outline a process to send a message to group participants via text and voicemail across numerous different devices.

While I am no patent law attorney I can tell you that the idea of one to many communication via text and voice is neither a new idea nor a new technology. E-mail allows you to send one text message to many recipients, cell companies themselves have enabled SMS messaging on their devices to allow e-mail’s to be received on phones (not including BlackBerry’s obvious e-mail feature), paging systems are still used across the country to send out call information, mobile data terminals over both radio frequencies and cellular frequencies do the same, as do two way radios that are now not only analog but digital as well. This is certainly not a new concept and not a technology that TechRadium™ can claim. In fact, their lawsuit doesn’t even really address the actual normal everyday use of Twitter at all as the issue.

The issue, according to TechRadium™, is us.

TechRadium™ has a problem with public safety agencies such as LA Fire (California), The American Red Cross (National Non-profit), Unruh Fire Department (Kansas), The Food and Drug Administration (Federal), South Orange Rescue (New Jersey), and The Center for Disease and Control (Federal). In their opinion these agencies using Twitter to better serve the people in their communities instead of the IRIS© product that they charge for is therefore costing them money and an infringement on their product.

Let me be very clear when I tell you that the TechRadium™ lawsuit, in my opinion, is both treacherous as well as frivolous.

I find it treacherous against the American Public for this company to try and handicap Public Safety Agencies who are already facing budget cuts that are forcing rolling service brown outs or just flat out closures cutting service to their communities. Why can’t Public Safety Agencies be afforded the same opportunities as individuals, small companies, and large corporations? Well it’s because obviously your tax dollars aren’t lining TechRadium™’s pocket.

Of course something they have obviously overlooked is that RSS Feeds have been syndicating messages across platforms since 1999, which is 6 years before their patent was filed. I don’t see them trying to sue AT&T for SMS Messaging, Microsoft for e-mail, or Motorola for pagers even though there are Public Safety Agencies certainly using those services. I also don’t see them suing the FCC for empowering television and radio stations to provide the public access to Emergency Broadcast System… so why is Twitter any different? Oh right, because it’s free, easy to use, popular, and in their minds probably not as powerful (and therefore an easier target for a litigious shakedown) as Facebook.

One of the supposed key components of IRIS© is the ability to take one message and translate it across multiple mediums. Therefore a text message would be translated into voice and a voice message into text. Does Twitter do that? No… but Kindle can! So the possibly only innovative idea that TechRadium™ came up with isn’t even being accomplished by the defendant, which is why I think it’s a frivolous lawsuit by a company who has a history of doing this.

The bottom line is treacherous corporate mongers suck.

Source 1: Law.com: Twitter Sued Over Emergency Tweets

Source 2: TechCrunch: Here Come The Twitter Patent Lawsuits

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In three months and three days we will be observing the eighth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks. While New York City has yet to build their permanent memorial on the site labeled Ground Zero, other communities have to honor the lives lost and the ultimate sacrifices made that day. The excerpt below is from this article:

ESSEX — County Executive Joseph DiVincenzo Jr. announced today a special memorial for the flight crews killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The idea for the memorial was proposed by Deborah Calimano, who has been a flight attendant for 17 years.

The existing memorial includes bronze service caps that sit atop pedestals, one honoring law enforcers who perished that day, another honoring the 343 New York City firefighters who perished as well when jets commandeered by terrorists slammed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

“When I saw this, I said, ‘What about us?’ We were in the line of duty just like everyone else,” Calimano said. “It’s still a brotherhood.”

Now, a five-foot stretch of granite will be added to the existing memorial. It will carry the names of the 33 flight crew members who died and be topped by a bronze pilot’s cap. The new memorial, designed Patrick Morelli, who also designed the West Orange memorial, will be dedicated Sept. 11, 2009 — correcting what Essex officials termed an “oversight.”

The County of Essex has chosen to honor Flight Crews distinctively instead of the EMTs and Paramedics who perished that day providing Emergency Medical Services to the injured. Across the nation EMS providers have always taken a back seat to our peers in public safety working in law enforcement and fire services. Now it seems we are taking the back seat to those who work in private services that have nothing to do with public safety.

Enough is enough.

We respond to situations where people are in potentially the most desperate and tragic moments of their lives. Our call volume surpasses that of the fire service and often is equal if not greater to law enforcement. Yet we receive little to no recognition for that and are far too often relegated to being lumped in with others. These practices over the years has resulted in an acute lack of pride within, causing a form of professional depression from our own members that has resulted in erratic and unprofessional behavior.

The blame for this predicament can be placed on no one but ourselves. We must be willing to speak up. Not as an EMT or a Paramedic but as The Emergency Medical Services, when these injustices occur. We need to stand by our own when they are unjustly persecuted just as law enforcement and the fire service do. We must be willing to speak out when our profession is the victim of an “oversight”.

We must commit to not just excellence for our patients, but excellence for ourselves. Now is the time to take action on that commitment.

Send an e-mail to Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr.’s office by filling in your name and e-mail address and pressing Send:

Your Name (required)

Your Email (required)

Executive DiVincenzo,

I read the Star Ledger article on-line about the monument for the airline crew-members who died on September 11. I am a member of the Emergency Medical Services and I vote and my family votes. Before you erect a monument for airline personnel, do the right thing and recognize the EMS personnel who gave their lives so gallantly on September 11.

Additional Message To Send (Just insert a \"Thanks\" if you have nothing more to add)

Sincerely,

(Your Name)

Or you can call Essex County Executive Joseph N. DiVincenzo, Jr. at 973-621-4400

Tell whoever answers the phone:

Executive DiVincenzo, I read the Star Ledger article on-line about the monument for the airline crew-members who died on September 11. I am an EMT (or paramedic) and I vote and my family votes. Before you erect a monument for airline personnel, do the right thing and recognize the EMS personnel who gave their lives so gallantly on September 11.

Let us begin being proud of our profession by insisting that our brothers and sisters who made the ultimate sacrifice be treated as the heroes they are.

Thanks to Daniel R. Gerard for making me aware of this situation