Copyright 2006 The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
All Rights Reserved
By DAVE MUNDAY
The Post and Courier (Charleston, SC)
There was a time when an emergency medical worker’s main job was loading a patient into an ambulance and hoping he makes it alive to the hospital.
Not any more. EMS workers are becoming like mobile doctors and ambulances like portable hospitals. The trend is saving lives and thousands of dollars in medical costs.
These innovations are part of the reason the S.C. EMS Network recently named Dorchester County EMS the 2005 Large System of the Year. Dorchester County Council acknowledged the award May 1, giving the department a framed copy of a resolution proclaiming May 14-20 as EMS Week.
Consider a couple of the innovations Dorchester County EMS starting using last year.
One is a machine that allows medical workers to send EKGs to hospitals over cell phones. A doctor can see the heart monitor readings before the patient gets to the hospital and recommend treatment on the scene.
The other device helps patients with congestive heart failure. It’s called continuous positive airway pressure. A mask fits over the patient’s face and pushes fluid out of the lungs.
Without the device, many congestive heart failure patients would have to be ventilated and stay in the hospital for three to six weeks, and ventilated patients often develop pneumonia. With this device, most patients don’t have to be ventilated at all and stay in the hospital less than a week.
“It’s a huge cost savings,” Dorchester County EMS Director Doug Warren said.
Berkeley County EMS and Charleston County EMS are also using the cell-phone EKG device. The Medical Society of South Carolina bought one for each department at the initiative of Roper Hospital. Doctors at Roper, Trident Hospital and the Medical University of South Carolina are set up to use it, Warren said.
Dorchester County EMS also worked with Roper-St. Francis Healthcare to put automated external defibrillators in all the county’s high schools. They also worked together to teach faculty and staff how to use the AEDs and administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation.
The department also got a grant from the S.C. Office of Rural Health for a defibrillator for the Reevesville Fire Department. Most of the county’s 12 rural fire departments now have the devices, which can fix faulty heart rhythms.