Tri-County Chiefs Meeting

Next meeting is on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 at 6:30 pm the location will be announced.

Chiefs Meeting Notes - contributed by Joanne LeBrun

January 20, 2010 - Conference Call

The Tri-County EMS Chiefs met on Wednesday, January 20, 2010 by conference call. The weather conditions were poor and the option of a conference call had been discussed in the past.

The meeting began at 6:30 pm. Those attending were Mark Bosse, Poland Fire and EMS; Fred Coffin, Stoneham Rescue; Brad Gilbert, United Ambulance; Lisa Buck, Buckfield Rescue, Warren Bennett, Wilsons Mills; Heather Cady, LifeFlight and Joanne LeBrun, Regional Coordinator

Heather Cady was introduced as the interim manager for LifeFlight. Lori Metayer is still active with LifeFlight, but has "retired" from the managers position to pursue her interest in nursing education and to spend more time with her family. Heather explained that LifeFlight is available to assist with training including:

- Ground safety training
- Traumatic Brain Injury
- Airway QI happens each month and if someone is interested in attending, that can be arranged by talking with Heather.

H1N1 Vaccine: Services reported having received vaccine for their providers. Joanne reminded the chiefs that vaccine is still available and to contact her if needed. All services reported offering assistance to their local schools and municipalities to assist with vaccination. Buckfield and United assisted with vaccination clinics held in their communities and Stoneham reported being on standby for a local vaccination clinic.

Emergency Alerting Project: Joanne provided an update on the status of this project. She and the regional staff have received the training on the system and have begun to enter data for alerting the service chiefs. Service chiefs will be contacted for information on the name of their cell phone carrier and to confirm they have the capacity to receive text messages.  Alerting can be done using multiple methods, email, paging and texting. In the near future, phone notification will be added. Chief Bosse pointed out that texting has become an increasingly important and efficient way to communicate. A test of the system will happen on Tuesday, January 26. All chiefs present agreed to participate.

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center - EMS Satisfaction Survey Laurie Potvin from SMRMC will be sending a survey to all area services and asking for all EMS services and providers to complete the survey. The survey will be done on Survey Monkey, but will also be available in paper format. St. Mary's is interested in hearing from providers about the emergency services they provide. Chiefs will be asked to forward the survey link to their EMS providers.

Service Level Medical Direction: A survey on this subject is in the final stages of preparation and will be sent to all regional EMS services about service level medical direction. This is part of an ongoing project , which is part of the regional EMS contract. The purpose is to learn more about service level medical direction - who has it? what is needed? obstacles, incentives, etc.

Joanne briefly reported on the following items and encouraged checking the Tri-County EMS website frequently for registration information and complete details www.tricountyems.org

• Tri-County EMS has received training center approval. Winter and spring courses are being planned
• EMT-B - Farmington, West Paris, and Lewiston (possibly Lisbon as well)
• EMT-I - Farmington and Lewiston
• EMT-Refresher begins Feb 5, 2010
• EMS Managers Course - Module 1 - January 29, 2010 in Augusta
• MEMSRR Training Program - March 4, 2010 Lewiston
• 6th Annual Cardiovascular Conference hosted by CMHVI March 5 - 7, 2010 - Sunday River

Airway QI Project:

• 15 services have received training
• 10 services had airway calls in Nov and Dec. 2009
• Evidence that at least 4 services conducted the QI review and left notes in the MEMSRR QI field as is part of the project
• The Region 2 Airway standard report can be located in MEMSRR Report Writer - under the Region 2 Tab
• Thank you to those services who have begun the review.
• Reminders: Positive pressure ventilation is not the same as BVM use; in addition to documenting in narrative, details must be checked off in the data fields - for example ET tube confirmation only checked off in 7 of 17 intubation calls.
  
• Medical control physicians have begun to review the airway calls that services have reviewed and will be providing feedback to service QI coordinators.
• Next QI meeting for those services who have been trained in the airway QI project, will be held towards the end of February. At this meeting cases will be presented and ideas exchanged. More info to follow.
• Additional training programs will be held in the coming months to bring all services into compliance.
  

Tri-County EMS office renovations nearly complete - same location, just on the ground (main floor). Stop in and say hello.

Maine EMS Report:

• Based on the evidence presented, the Board of EMS granted a waiver to those services not having a 12 lead machine by January 1, 2010 who were listed in the waiver request . The deadline for compliance with that rule was extended to July 31, 2011.
• A small work group has been formed to explore what tasks police, fire, drivers, etc, can perform at the scene of an EMS call to assist the licensed personnel.
• Due to budget cuts, the Maine EMS Journal will now only be available on line.
• The MDPB will begin reviewing protocols in February.

The group spent a few minutes discussing the conference call format and felt it was effective and worthwhile, especially on a night with poor travel conditions.

The meeting adjourned at 7:40 pm.

Oxford Public Safety Building

September 16, 2009

H1N1 and Seasonal Flu as reported by Joanne leBrun:
EMT-P and EMT-I will be allowed, with the Medivax Program training, to expand to a public vaccine clinic and to schools instead of just "force protection."

• A Medical Director or Regional Director will be needed for your program. This is a physician prescribed event.
• Your name must be on the official EMS roster for the training in order to be protected from liability, workers comp, and any issues with the vaccine. This is by a Governor’s proclamation.
• Class must be taught by an IC and approved. Duration for class is 1 ½ to 2 hours.
• Hospitals are willing to partner with EMS to get the vaccine.
• Arrangements and paperwork must be completed by the service.
• EMT-B’s can help with completing the paperwork on the day of the clinic.
• Maine CDC is supplying vaccines to the hospitals at no charge. This includes seasonal and the H1N1.
• Most at risk are the 6 mos to 6 yrs age group. These children are often not in school yet. Suggested to contact local day cares to hold a clinic.
• The next group are the 18 to 24 yr olds. This group may be un employed or under-employed and with no insured access to health care. Pregnant woman are also at greater risk.
• Seasonal flu vaccine is available to everyone. The H1N1 vaccine may be restricted to high risk groups first.
• N 95 must be worn if you are less than 8 feet from contact with anyone who is coughing and has a fever. Recent OSHA guidance is the N 95. Re-usable N 95 are now on the market with exchangeable filters. If you are exposed to the H1N1 virus you should be placed on a treatment, ie Tamiflu.
• MEMS protocols should be followed at all times. There may be emergency proclamations. Follow MEMS not EMA. EMD follows MEMS.
• Develop a continuity plan for your in house if you should lose 30% of your work force due to the flu.

Presentation from Jon Powers MEMSRR: jon.n.powers@maine.gov

1. 100% of the services in Maine are now paperless.
2. Hospitals can now access the MEMS reports.
3. Money is available for the Tough Book with a matching grant. 25% match/75% states. This includes 1 book, 1 license  $300.00 service contract. E-mail Jon for more info.
   

Run report program was discussed and explained. Jon showed how to pull the data from the reports by department, single provider, and topic. When a procedure is entered it is important to write it as successful and not left blank.
EMD dispatchers should be informing us when they give pre-arrival instructions. This should be documented on your report. Enter unknown if you do not know, not no.

General Report by Joanne LeBrun:

• Starting Oct. 5, there will be a new ED walk-in patient entrance. This is located next to the elevator entrance between the ER and the 60 High St main entrance. Please be aware of pedestrians
• Admissions and discharges should be made through the main entrance.
• Tri-County EMS’s web site is under construction and should be completed soon.
• There will be an EMT-B class this fall in Norway, starting end of October. A First Responder class is in Dixfield.
• Tri-County offices will be moving down stairs by the end of October.
• There no longer is the need to complete and sent the Airway QI forms although all airway should be well documented on your run reports.
• There will be a QI meeting held at the Oxford Public Safety Building on October 21 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm. There will also be one in Lewiston the same day as the Quality Council on November 5 to be held from 9:00 to 11:30 am. You need only to attend one session.
• The new MEMS rules and equipment list can be accessed on the MEMS site.
• The next Chief’s will be held on November 18 at 6:30 pm
  

Attendance at Septembers Chief’s meeting:

Name	Service
Lisa Buck	Buckfield
Floyd Richardson Jr.	Buckfield
Patty Hesse	Oxford
Brad Gilbert	United
Fred Coffin	Stoneham
Diane Delano	Poland
Mark Bosse	Poland
Mike Senecal	North Star
Shelly Chipman	New Gloucester
Eric Michaud	United
May Rich	New Gloucester
Jonathan Damon	Mechanic Falls/Otisfield
Jennifer Casey	Mechanic Falls
Joanne Lebrun	Tri-County EMS
Jon Powers	Maine EMS