By Todd South
Chattanooga Times Free Press
ROCK SPRING, Ga. — A machine more often used to help people stop snoring soon could be saving people’s lives and saving dollars, too.
Walker County paramedics this week completed training with the continuous positive airway pressure machine, or CPAP, for use other than helping sleep apnea sufferers at night.
For the emergency medical workers, the CPAP device is a pressure regulating breather that can fill the lungs and keep open the alveoli — tiny sacs within the lungs that allow for oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange.
In breathing emergencies for patients with conditions like congestive heart failure, bronchitis, asthma or emphysema, these tiny sacs can collapse.
“Once (alveoli) collapse due to disease, they’re hard to open back up,” said James Cutcher, assistant chief of Walker County Emergency Medical Services.
Walker County purchased four CPAP units at $4,000 each, using revenue from the special purpose local option sales tax voters approved last fall, Fire Chief Randy Camp said.
He said the paramedics received training on the devices, which now will be available for placement on ambulances in the county for use in event of pulmonary failure in an emergency patient.
The chief said the Walker EMS also has ordered nine 12-lead cardiac monitors — at $27,000 each — that have mobile communication capability. Once hooked up to a patient, the devices send heart condition information to doctors at the hospital while paramedics are transporting the patient.
Lois Tanner, Southeast Regional Manager for Emergent Respiratory Products, instructed the paramedics on the use of the CPAP system.
As part of the training, paramedics practiced attaching the mask to a patient’s face, checking on breathing and adjusting the pressure level of air the device gives the patient.
Ms. Tanner said the CPAP use can add up significant cost savings for a hospital, as well as helping the patient.
She said patients who require a ventilator often end up costing hospitals more than any other type of patient, racking up $8,000 worth of care in the first 24 hours, she told the class.
Chief Cutcher said by using the CPAP device, paramedics can keep chronic respiratory patients off the ventilator longer, prolonging their lives. He said once a patient is placed on a ventilator, frequently that person is unable in the future to breathe without one.