By Sean Hilliard
The Evening Sun (Hanover, Pennsylvania)
Copyright 2006 MediaNews Group, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
Adams County is set to be the statewide focus of a new emergency medical service pilot program starting in the next couple of weeks.
Continuous Positive Air Pressure units will begin to be phased into ambulances in rural areas of the county on a trial basis before being required statewide, said Tim Gehman, program coordinator for Emergency Health Services Federation, which covers an eight-county area including Adams, Franklin and York counties. The federation, which is based in New Cumberland, is a regional liaison with the Pennsylvania Department of Health that governs municipal EMS services.
The pilot program was announced at Thursday night’s Adams County EMS meeting.
CPAPs are already present in advanced life-support units, called medic units, and the department of health wants to see them in basic life-support units, or ambulances, Gehman said.
The main use for CPAPs are when patients need large amounts of oxygen quickly, especially when they are suffering from congestive heart failure, which causes the lungs to fill with fluid, Gehman said. CPAPs pumps oxygen into the lungs, displacing the fluid out through the lung walls into the body.
CPAPs can be the difference between “night and day” with respiratory patients, Gehman said.
“I’ve seen people five minutes from death put on CPAP during a five-minute ride to the hospital up and talking before the end of the ride,” he said.
Because the two medic units in the area are based in Gettysburg and Hanover, rural areas like Carroll Valley and Lake Meade will be the first to receive CPAPs, said Neal Abrams, Fairfield Fire Co. EMS captain. Ambulances in those municipalities often have to rendezvous with medic units to get this respiratory life support to patients.
“If the medic unit (from Gettysburg) is in New Oxford, we can get to Gettysburg Hospital before they can get to Carroll Valley,” Abrams said.
George Eschbach, Lake Meade ambulance president, said his ambulance company will start with two CPAPs because they are single-use units that must be replaced after each usage, whereas CPAPs on medic units are multiple use.
CPAPs look like breathing masks but have a control box attached to the outside to regulate how much oxygen they pump into the patient. Each unit costs about $75, Gehman said.
Abrams said the cost of a CPAP unit is worth it because of the distance ambulances often have to travel to get respiratory life support.
“This could save half a dozen lives a year in the county,” Abrams said.