By Chandra Johnson
The Taos News
TAOS COUNTY, N.M. — Taos County EMS saves lives every day — and now it’ll be able to do it a lot more efficiently, thanks to new heart defibrillators courtesy of a federal grant.
EMS director of operations Joaquin Gonzales said the $50,000 Assistance to Firefight-ers grant from the Department of Homeland Security paid to replace two current cardiac monitors that were outdated by about 13 years.
A third monitor was replaced with money from the EMS operations budget, Gonzales said.
“Taos was in dire need of new defibrillators,” Gonzales said. “The old ones were called LifePak 12s. The new ones are LifePak 15s and they have a lot more capability.”
Those capabilities include being able not only to monitor a patient’s heart rate, but to help monitor other things like blood oxygen and carbon monoxide levels.
“We probably get at least three carbon monoxide cases a year. People will have flu-like symptoms and might not know what’s wrong,” Gonzales said. “It’s crucial in the winter when the furnaces are going.”
Carbon monoxide detection can also play a big role in helping firefighter recovery at an especially bad scene, Gonzales said and making sure a sick firefighter doesn’t go back into a blaze.
The new defibrillators will also tell EMS workers whether or not a patient is having a true heart attack.
“We determine whether or not a patient is having a true heart attack using information from what’s called a 12-lead (EKG),” Gonzales said. “We used to have to do that in the ER. With these new machines, we can determine the problem and send the information directly to the cardiologist’s cell phone so he knows what’s coming.”
The grant Taos EMS got was extremely competitive, with only eight cities in New Mexico getting funding -- and Taos was the only EMS program to get a piece of the money.
In addition to the new defibrillators, Taos EMS also recently got three wireless laptops to help paramedics access patient medical documents quickly and easily. For an agency that handles upward of 3,000 calls each year, Gonzales says the laptops will really help his paramedics write their reports.
“We have to write a report on every single patient,” Gonzales said. “Right now, all our reports are hand-written.”
Gonzales said he’s thankful his department was chosen for the grant.
“My main goal as the director is to have the most reliable, up-to-date equipment for the visitors, citizens and families of Taos County,” Gonzales said.
Copyright 2010 The Taos News