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An EMS Guide to Wake-Up Ischemic Strokes
It’s 7:15 a.m. when the tones go off. “Squad 83 and ALS 83, respond for a 65-year-old female with a possible stroke,” squawks the dispatcher. Why did the last crew leave the radio on so loud? It’s too early for loud noises. Apparently your partner didn’t get the memo about loud noises either; he flips the siren to wail as soon as the wheels start to roll. You arrive to find Mrs. M, a pleasant older female who you’ve seen once or twice before for chest pain or palpitations. She seems to be staring into space, has an obvious facial droop, her arm drifts, her speech is slurred and the pleasant cheery lady you reme...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - November 20, 2015 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Michael Bohanske, MD Tags: Cardiac & Resuscitation Neurology Patient Care Source Type: news

Muhammed Ali's Death Underscores Importance of Prehospital Sepsis Detection
Muhammad Ali, one of the greatest athletes of all times and a world-class treasure, passed away on Friday, June 3, 2016, as result of sepsis. Imagine if an EMS crew could have detected that he was becoming septic and was able to treat him in the field, helping the hospital attack this deadly condition before it attacked his vital organs? Soon, crews all over the world will be capable of doing so. Severe sepsis is caused by overwhelming infection, and is responsible for significant morbidity and mortality among hospitalized patients. Clinical identification of sepsis includes two or more of the systemic inflammatory respons...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - June 6, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: A.J. Heightman, MPA, EMT-P Tags: Patient Care Source Type: news

South Carolina EMS Integrates In-Hospital Sepsis Care into Protocols
Medic 29 is dispatched to a college dorm for a female with chief complaint of lower abdominal and flank pain for the past five days. The dorm room appears clean and well kept. The patient appears to be a typical 18-year-old college student. She's lying on her bed and is responsive to verbal stimuli, hot to touch, and tachycardic with weak and thready radial pulses at 128. She reports painful urinating for the past 48 hours, general malaise, weakness and nausea. She appears to have labored respirations with a room air SpO2 reading of 95% and is hypotensive with a systolic blood pressure of 88 mmHg that remains low during tr...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - September 1, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Jason G. Walchok, NRP, FP-C Tags: Patient Care Source Type: news

A Paramedic's Repeated Encounters with Sepsis
Sepsis is a disease process that has been on the forefront lately, especially in the EMS community. Prehospital professionals are trained to recognize the symptoms, such as tachypnea above 22 breaths per minute, fever, tachycardia above 90bpm, and a possible source of infection. Thanks to special emphasis by JEMS in a far-reaching special sepsis section in September that points out how effectively prehospital providers are able to identify sepsis in the field, hospitals around the U.S. are now developing sepsis protocols and working with EMS providers to institute prehospital alerts to join the ranks of trauma, STEMI and s...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - November 29, 2016 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Jessica Edwards, NRP Tags: Patient Care Source Type: news

Is it an Emergency? Insurer Asks Patients to Question ED Visits
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Alison Wrenne was making waffles for her two young children one morning when abdominal pain forced her to the floor. A neighbor who is a physician assistant urged her to go to the emergency room. Wrong decision, according to her health insurer. Wrenne was diagnosed with a ruptured ovarian cyst, but Anthem said that wasn't an emergency and stuck her with a $4,110 bill. "How are you supposed to know that?" said the 34-year-old from Lexington, Kentucky. "I'm not a doctor ... that's what the emergency room is for." In an effort to curb unnecessary and costly ER visits, the Blue Cross-B...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - November 10, 2017 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Tom Murphy, Associated Press Tags: Patient Care News Administration and Leadership Source Type: news

Patient Care Falters as COVID-19 Devastates L.A. County (CA) Hospitals
Soumya Karlamangla, Rong-Gong Lin II, Luke Money Los Angeles Times (MCT) Los Angeles County’s healthcare system was buckling Wednesday under the unprecedented surge of COVID-19 patients, with bodies piling up at morgues and medical professionals resorting to increasingly desperate measures as they brace for conditions to worsen in the coming weeks. With hospitals overwhelmed by patients and no outlet valve available, doctors, nurses and paramedics are being forced to make wrenching choices about who gets care and at what level. “No one would believe this is in the United States,” ...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - December 31, 2020 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: JEMS Staff Tags: Coronavirus News News Feed California EMS Hospital Paramedic Source Type: news

Marion County (WV) Rescue Squad Honored for Heart Patient Transport Times
Eddie Trizzino Times West Virginian, Fairmont (MCT) When an individual is having a heart attack, every second matters in getting them treated to ensure they will not only survive, but maintain a healthy heart after their trauma. For a few months this past summer, the Marion County Rescue Squad could not transfer patients to an emergency department within Marion County, after Fairmont Regional Medical Center closed in May. Michael Angelucci, administrator of the Marion County Rescue Squad, in some cases, this added up to 30 minutes to a patient’s transport to a hospital. ...
Source: JEMS Patient Care - January 6, 2021 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: JEMS Staff Tags: Cardiac & Resuscitation News News Feed Patient Care Cardiac Arrest West Virginia Source Type: news