By Jeff Pikulsky
Tribune-Review
Copyright 2007 Tribune Review Publishing Company
All Rights Reserved
ELIZABETH TWP., Penn. — The Elizabeth Township ambulance service has a new state-of-the-art edge in treating patients with respiratory problems.
Elizabeth Township Area Emergency Medical Services recently purchased five Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machines that will soon be in the company’s advanced life support ambulances.
The machines, also known as C-PAPs, regulate breathing for patients suffering from respiratory problems.
The units will be mostly used on patients before they reach the hospital.
Paramedic Leif Clark said in severe cases breathing tubes have to be used.
The C-PAP machines will mostly eliminate that procedure, Clark said, and greatly improve the patient’s outcome.
“When you intubate people, you have to give them drugs that are pretty serious drugs. It’s kind of like landing an F-16 on an aircraft carrier. You don’t know which way it’s going to go,” Clark said.
Patients using the C-PAP usually stabilize in 15 to 20 minutes, before they arrive at the hospital, Clark said.
He said using the machines would reduce the length of hospital stays and risk of infection considerably.
“It’s going to be a great tool,” Clark said. “The main benefit for us using it is going to be for congestive heart failure patients.
“It’s a huge answer to a lot of people’s problems. It’s a piece of cake to use. It’s quick to throw it on. It’s less risky. It’s less invasive. It doesn’t tie the paramedic’s hands up. When you have to intubate a person, you can’t do other things.”
Executive Director Chris Dell said the ambulance service gained approval for the device from its medical command center, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center in McKeesport.
“Thirty percent of our calls are respiratory in nature,” Dell said. “We have had multiple incidents where it was recognized that if we had the C-PAP device, it would have benefited the patient. We studied it in depth with our continuous quality improvement committee and proved the need and therefore got the hospital to agree to allow us to use it.”
Elizabeth Area Ambulance handles about 7,000 calls per year.
C-PAPs will offer a faster, safer and more advanced type of treatment.
The machine is noninvasive and can be applied in minutes.
“It allows the patient to relax and for their normal physiological responses to aid in their problem. This machine gives a constant flow of pressure and it forces the air into their lungs, even as they’re breathing,” Clark said. “It decreases their workload to breathe. It decreases their heart rate, their blood pressure and their respiratory rate.”
Clark said the C-PAP machines will help avoid side effects patients may experience because they must be sedated before a breathing tube is applied.
“If we sedate them, you have complications, you have issues,” he said.
The C-PAPs are portable and will be available for patients needing breathing treatments at their residences.
They cost $1,200 each.
A grant from the Emergency Medical Services Institute paid for one of Elizabeth Township Area’s units.
Mortgage Smart, a company in Buena Vista, paid for another.
Dell said the ambulance service is asking businesses and community organizations to send in donations to help offset the cost for the machines.
He said the ambulance service must also replace breathing masks each time the units are used.
The masks cost $36 each, Dell said.
The director said Elizabeth Area Ambulance will be one of few services in the region using C-PAPs.
Dell said Elizabeth Area Ambulance employees will soon visit the Wiser Institute at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to receive training involving treatment of respiratory problems.
“Because breathing emergencies are such a big deal, over the next three months, all of our paramedics will be receiving an eight-hour, intense hands-on course on advanced pre-hospital management. It will involve this machine, too,” Dell said.