Copyright 2006 Star Tribune
All Rights Reserved
By DAVID PHELPS
Star Tribune
Those who drive ambulances for HealthEast Care System have a new co-driver beside the wheel. It’s black, rectangular and about the size of a cigar box.
It emits clicking sounds and high-pitched tones to alert the paramedics and emergency technicians if they’re braking too hard or turning too fast, be it an emergency call or routine transfer from hospital to home.
In a first for the Twin Cities, the ambulance cab is going the way of the airline cockpit. The little black box records speed, G forces, severity of turns and braking patterns. It also knows when the emergency lights and siren are engaged as well as the engine speed.
Hospitals can use the information to grade drivers or to reconstruct accidents.
“It re-teaches you how to drive,” said HealthEast paramedic Jeff Groess. “You’re driving a 4,000-pound vehicle, and that’s kind of hard to stop.”
HealthEast is the first ambulance service in the Twin Cities using the black-box technology, which goes by the trade name Road Safety. Other ambulance services are evaluating various types of technology to monitor vehicles but are not as far along as HealthEast.
The transportation division of Allina Hospitals & Clinics, for instance, is testing an in-cab camera system in one ambulance but hasn’t made a decision whether to equip its 47 ambulances with the device.
“Everyone knows what you are supposed to be doing,” said Tim Burke of Allina Medical Transportation. “It’s a little bit of a reminder, and there’s nothing wrong with being reminded.”
Burke said Allina currently tracks its emergency vehicles by satellite to determine where they are, what direction they’re pointed and how fast they are traveling.
HealthEast will have all 20 of its vehicles equipped with the black-box monitor later this month at a cost of $8,000 apiece. Training for paramedics and EMTs will begin in earnest after that.
Groess, who has been through training, said he believes the ambulance crews will adapt to the technology and use it to their advantage, particularly when driving fast through heavy traffic.
A small speaker emits a clicking sound like a Geiger counter as the ambulance reaches the limits of safe handling of the vehicle that then turns into a steady high-pitched sound when the ambulance exceeds those parameters. Crews are taught to use the clicking sound as a guide for driving.
“A really good driver will drive on the clicks,” said Dave McGowan, ambulance operations manager for HealthEast. “The feedback has been favorable. There’s always fear of the unknown, but after training they realize it’s not as bad as they think. It’s not so much Big Brother but another tool to assure that the patient is delivered safely and we get to the scene promptly.”
The black-box technology also should help reduce the number of accidents involving ambulances. HealthEast hasn’t had an ambulance involved in a major crash for two years, but there’s always the risk.
HealthEast hopes the black boxes also will cut down on wear and tear.
“You’re not going around corners as hard, you’re easing on the brakes, you’re not accelerating as fast. You reduce oil consumption and tire wear,” McGowan said, noting that ambulances are $90,000 vehicles that have to be replaced or refurbished every five to six years.
McGowan said that reducing maintenance costs is essential in the operation of HealthEast’s ambulance fleet, which generates revenue of $14 million a year.
“This is a tough business to be in. If anyone thinks ambulances make money, they don’t. Fuel is going up, insurance has almost tripled in the last three years,” McGowan said. Insurers, he said, have indicated that rates should stabilize with the addition of the black boxes and could be reduced if the results warrant.
The black box has been used by over-the-road trucking and delivery companies, and the manufacturer, California-based Road Safety International, advertises on its website that it can be used to monitor teen drivers as well.
If the black box’s introduction at HealthEast is successful, it will be the latest evolutionary step in emergency health care.
When McGowan started in the ambulance business as a driver in southeastern Minnesota in 1978, the vehicles were souped-up Cadillacs.
“It was basically a glorified hearse with a red light on top,” he said. “The best care you could give was to see how fast you could go.”