Download - Medic Dispatch - April 4, 2011
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News From The Front Line April 4, 2011
The MEDIC Dispatch
Medic’s 2011 Stars of Life Recipients
The Stars of Life is an annual
program administered by the
American Ambulance
Association. The program is
intended to recognize the top
performers from EMS Agencies
throughout the country. Medic
has historically participated in
the Stars of Life program and
sent top employees from this
Agency each year to their spring
conference in Washington DC.
This year, the Employee
Recognition Committee
thoroughly vetted the
commendation database in
addition to assessing information provided in the top employee performance reviews from the
past year as provided by the HR department. Later, members of the Lead Team helped to
further narrow down the list of candidates. This was a very thorough yet difficult task, with
many, many worthy employees were considered. When all was said and done, however, only
three names remained.
Please join Medic’s Leadership Team in congratulating this year’s Stars of Life representatives
from Medic: Operations/BLS Cathy Jordan; IT Virgil Leggett and NET
Coordinator Jamie Stanford.
Cathy, Virgil and Jamie are outstanding co-workers and set a solid example by the way they go
about their jobs here at Medic. The Agency’s Leadership Team is very proud to have each of
them representing Medic at this year’s Stars of Life Conference in Washington DC, which is
taking place May 1st—4th, 2011.
The 2011 Stars of Life recipients were selected based on your submissions to the Employee
Recognition Team. We would like to thank everyone for their participation and submissions.
Please congratulate Cathy, Virgil and Jamie on their hard work and well deserved recognition.
This Week:
From the Desk of
Barry Bagwell 2
The Official Launch
of OMEGA 3
FINAL Performance
Pay Data—2nd
Tracking Period
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Focused Cardiac
Arrest 5
April Birthdays 6
Salute to Heroes
Game 7
Training Schedule 8
Mecklenburg
EMS
Agency
Dates to
Remember:
April 3rd
Medic Night
Time Warner Cable
Arena
1800—2200
April 9th
Salute to Heroes
Hockey Game
Starts at 1700
(from left to right): 2011 Stars of Life Recipients, Paramedic Crew Chief Cathy
Jordan, NET Coordinator Jamie Stanford and IT/Systems Engineer Virgil Leggett are
congratulated by Medic Executive Director, Joe Penner after being selected as this
year’s winners.
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Please be advised that the part-time roster is full and there are currently no
available part-time positions.
Moving forward, any full-time Medic employee seeking part-time status will need to
submit a written request to their assigned supervisor. Your name will be placed on
a waiting list and you will be notified if and when a part-time opening becomes
available.
Medic is currently in the process of reviewing its requirements for part-time
personnel including the number of monthly hours required (the required hours per
month will not increase) as well as guidelines for transferring from full-time to part-
time status and vice versa.
Mandatory meetings for all current Medic part-time employees will be scheduled during the
month of April. Please be on the lookout for further communications announcing the exact dates
and times.
The purpose of the mandatory meetings will be to hear from Medic part-time employees including feedback as to what is
working well, what is not working well and looking at current rules for part-time Medic employees.
If you have any questions about the upcoming meetings or the part-time waiting list, please contact Keith Overcash
(A-Shift) at ext. 6250 or via e-mail at [email protected] or Bob Francis (B-Shift) at ext. 6251 or via e-mail at
Thank you.
From the Desk of Barry Bagwell—Medic Part-Time Positions
There has been an isolated instance in which the batteries on the PHILIPS MRX monitor have quickly lost their charge.
This occurred approximately one hour after the crew checked the status of the batteries, one showing five lights the other
four lights. We are working with PHILIPS to identify the cause of this failure. Again, this is an isolated instance.
If you should experience a battery failure, the AC charging unit for the MRX is located in the pediatric cabinet of the truck.
The AC charging unit should be placed in the A slot of the MRX, please remove the faulty battery prior to placing the AC
charging unit. It can then be plugged into any electrical outlet or run by the onboard inverter on the units. Notify the on
duty Supervisor of the monitor failure and request a second truck be dispatched by CMED. After completion of the call
BOTH the PHILIPS monitor and the faulty battery along with a detailed Lost & Damaged report should be turned in to
Support Services for investigation by PHILIPS as to the cause.
Logistics is currently exploring the possibility of placing three MRX batteries on each unit prior to deployment; however,
they must first ensure this will not affect their ability to supply fully charged batteries for shift deployment.
If you have any questions feel free to contact Steve Vandeventer at 980.406.1220 or via e-mail at [email protected]
or Bryan Edwards at 704-943-6130 or via e-mail at [email protected].
PHILIPS MRX Notification
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During February InService, a communication was made on
launching the OMEGA protocol. Last Friday marked the
official launch date of the protocol. After four years of
research at Medic, the program is up and running!
Medic leadership, along with our hospital partners and the
County, held a press conference on April 1st to clearly
explain the program and the new option offered to patients
with minor injuries or illnesses. All local news stations, as
well as the Charlotte Observer were in attendance.
The PR Department will gather all the segments and the
Observer piece for employees to view. An announcement
will be made in the Dispatch once the media segments are
posted to the website and MedTV. Please also be sure to
check out our website about the launch of OMEGA at
www.medic911.com/omega_program/.
If you have any questions about the OMEGA protocol,
please contact Barry Bagwell at ext. 6170 or via e-mail at
The Official Launch of OMEGA
March has been a busy month for Medic's Medical Journal
and ECG Club. A meeting was held for B-shift on March 7th
and we reviewed a wide range of ECG's, including
hyperkalemia, atrial fibrillation with WPW, and a variety of
uncommon but life-threatening 12-lead findings.
A-Shift met on March 18th and we reviewed two journal
articles originating from MEDIC: Association Between
Prehospital Time Intervals and STEMI System Performance,
from Circulation, and The Association Between
Prehospital Endotracheal Intubation Attempts and Survival
to Hospital Discharge Among Out-of-hospital Cardiac
Arrest Patients, from Academic Emergency Medicine.
Two more meetings have been planned for this spring. The
next Medical Journal and ECG Club meeting has been set
for this Thursday, April 7th at 1:00 pm at the Flying
Saucer, with one more meeting to follow in May. As
always, all are welcome to attend. Please e-mail Mike
Sherriff at [email protected] if you are interested in
attending.
Next Medical Journal & ECG
Exciting changes are taking
place at Medic as
we prepare to go live with
phase one of the BLS 911
units. Currently, 16 of
Medic's finest EMT's are in
the second week of an intensive EMT-Crew Chief class.
Participants are reviewing the EMT curriculum, learning
their new roles at Medic and getting lots of hands-
on experience in lab. Students will be starting their field
ride time on Tuesday April 12th and are scheduled to be
deployed in the system on May 17th.
Please congratulate our newest EMT Crew Chiefs as
they begin their new roles and lead the way in these
changes at Medic!
Medic’s EMT-Crew Chief Class
Approximately 130 Medic employees viewed the Shift Bid
Employee Input presentation. The presentation was
designed to address your recommendations, questions and
suggestions to the upcoming Shift Bid process.
The Operations department would like to take a moment
to recognize the hard work and efforts of Operations
Manager – Communications, Todd Sims and Supervisor of
Scheduling and Deployment, Bryan Runyan. Both have
worked tirelessly to inform Medic field staff of changes to
the shift bid process as well gather important feedback
from employee input sessions.
Please visit the link below for a full, detailed summary of the
2011 Medic Shift Bid Employee Input sessions. Responses to
your recommendations, suggestions and questions appear
in italics.
www.medic911.com/shift_bid
From the Desk of Barry Bagwell
(from left to right) EMTs Bill Woods, Chris Alaimo, Beth Hill,
Katie Pike and instructor Jerry Morris take part in a pediatric
trauma scenario as part of the EMT-Crew Chief class training.
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Medic’s (Civil Emergency Unit ) CEU team is a growing elite force of specially-trained paramedics
partnered with CMPD to provide care to officers and civilians encountered in potentially dangerous
situations such as protests, riots or demonstrations. Since joining the ranks of Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Police Department’s CEU in 2006, this team of top-performing Paramedics continues to assist law
enforcement officers by providing medical care during large scale events or in situations of civil
disturbance.
After a tremendous amount of intensive introductory training, the newest members of Medic’s CEU team have completed
the requirements and are officially among the ranks of this elite team. Please join Team Leader, Charles Horne in
welcoming the newest members of Medic’s CEU team:
Kariena (K.C.) Bernesser
Alan Elam
Robert Graf
Malcolm Leirmoe
Gabriel (Gabe) McGaha
Thomas Nagel
William Walton
Welcome Our Newest CEU Team Members!
The patient satisfaction data from the second tracking
period is officially in and 64% of Medic’s patients rated our
service as being excellent. In line with our commitment
when the program started, unfortunately, there will be no
payout for this second tracking period as we did not meet
our target goal of 68% excellent for patient satisfaction.
To this end, Medic has formed a central work team to help
better understand what drives patient satisfaction. The
research this team does will directly impact Medic’s patient
satisfaction tracking process. Approximately, 20 letters of
interest from employees from field, CMED and
administrative staff were submitted QI Systems Analyst,
Michelle Correll. As the project leader for this team,
Michelle will be contacting each interested individual this week for follow-up. Please note there are only six spaces available
on the work team, but there will be opportunity for each person interested to participate in discussions during the
process. Selections will be made based on commitment to the project and availability to meet each week.
All Medic employees are encouraged to stay focused on the patient, communicate in a thoughtful way with everyone you
engage with and remember that how we are perceived on each and every call will translate into our patient satisfaction
scores down the road.
FINAL Performance Pay Data—2nd Tracking Period
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Over the last 12 months there have been very positive comments from both the Fire Department and MEDIC personnel
regarding the focused cardiac arrest protocol. Our survival rates continue to be among the best in the country and all
employees should be proud of this accomplishment. Two areas of improvement were identified during this month’s cardiac
arrest quality assurance meeting.
Recent research has indicated that quality chest compressions are one of the most important components of
successful cardiac arrest resuscitation. Data has also demonstrated that adequate compressions can only be delivered by
one person for approximately 2 minutes; QCPR data from our system back these findings. Therefore, it is imperative
that the basic EMT or the 2nd paramedic relieve the FFI of chest compressions after placing the cardiac
monitor. This was designed to give the FFI a break from compressions in advance of transporting the patient. It has been
reported that this is not occurring on a regular basis. Fire Captains and MEDIC crew chiefs are asked to keep the quality of
chest compressions being delivered in mind. This may mean that you have to switch rescuers more frequently to maintain
quality.
After the delivery of quality chest compression, decreasing time off chest, or the amount of time CPR is not being
delivered during a defibrillation attempt, is the next most important component of successful resuscitations.
As such we should strive to limit our time off the chest as much as possible. Our QCPR data shows time from CPR stop
to defibrillation delivery averages 17.3 seconds with total time off chest for defibrillation near 30 seconds. When using a
manual defibrillator and good communication it should be possible to cut these numbers at least in half. Remember that the
person doing chest compressions should be delivering the defibrillation when using the AED and this practice was put into
place to limit the time off the chest. Also, pulse and rhythm checks should be performed only after two minutes of CPR
from the time the defibrillation was delivered and should be kept to a minimum 5-10 seconds.
If you have any questions, please fee free to contact Steve Vandeventer at 980.406.1220 or via e-mail at
Focused Cardiac Arrest
Due to the unusual circumstances
surrounding the February 2011 InService,
the Learning & Development department
has added 2 additional dates of makeup
InService for February and March.
MARCH Makeup InService
April 20 (Wed) 0800-1200
April 27 (Wed) 1200-1600
FEBRUARY Makeup InService April 20 (Wed) 1200-1600
April 27 (Wed) 0800-1200
**Medic InService WILL NOT be held during the
month of April.** Please contact a member of the
Learning & Development department if you have any
questions. Thank you.
Medic InService Notifications
Benevolent Committee openings for new Committee
members. Meetings are held monthly or bi-monthly with
days / times varying to meet attendees schedules. If
anyone is interested in joining the committee, please
submit email of interest to Corinne Walser at
[email protected] by COBD Wednesday, April
20. If any questions, please give Corinne a call at
704.943.6242.
Interest in Benevolent Committee?
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We would like to extend special birthday wishes to the following employees celebrating a birthday in the month of April:
Happy Birthday!
Medic is now online with the National Registry of EMT’s
website.
If you are nationally registered the Learning & Development
department can add your continuing education classes
automatically to your profile and all of your recertification
can be done on line with no paperwork. If you are
nationally registered, please go to www.NREMT.org and set
up your profile.
If you have any questions, please contact Sam Barnes,
Education/Quality Specialist at 704.943.6143. or via e-mail
National Registry of EMT’s
Online Anatomy & Physiology
April 4th – May 30th
This class will meet
the NCOEMS
requirement for
entry into a paramedic program
Call 704.330.4223 to register
Online Instructor Methodology
April 4th—April 25th
This class will meet the NCOEMS requirement for EMS
level one instructor application. The class will meet in
the classroom on:
04/04, 04/18, 04/25
North Campus room CJ119
Call 704.330.4223 to register, the class code is
EMT-7003-01
CPCC Course Offerings
Alan Elam April 1
Eric Bitler April 6
Matthew Johnson April 6
Tia Dida April 7
Robert Owens April 8
John Stroup April 8
Jay Black April 9
Travis Williams April 9
Colby Willison April 10
Cindy Griffin April 12
Michael Stratton April 12
Amber Brock April 13
Treven Cherry April 13
Todd Sims April 13
Harley Conrad April 14
Hannah Gompers April 14
Debbie Parrish April 15
William Thomas April 15
Steven Ward April 15
Tina Robedee April 16
Johnny Tompkins April 16
Sanders Guignard April 17
Katie Currin April 18
Daniel Hueschen April 18
Samuel Barnes April 20
Abby Jones April 21
Katie Spitzmiller April 21
Janine Curlee April 22
Susan Davis April 26
Don Singer April 26
Tom Wright April 26
Don Shue April 27
Randall McKown April 29
Rebekah Hart-
O’Sullivan
April 30
Nichole Washington April 26
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Be sure to mark your calendars and join us for the 6th annual Salute
to Heroes game on Saturday, April 9th at Time Warner Cable
Arena.
The cost of game tickets are $10 or $20, depending on seating.
You get two games for the price of one! First, there is the
Charlotte Checkers game. During the Checkers game, there will be
several special activities in place to honor and recognize our
outstanding employees.
The second game is where we take to the ice!
Come support Medic and the Charlotte Fire Department as they
prepare to reclaim their championship title against the Charlotte
-Mecklenburg Police Department (CMPD) and the Mecklenburg
County Sheriff’s Office.
To purchase your Salute to Heroes tickets, please contact Kristin
Young at [email protected] or ext. 6165 or Nikkie Perry at
[email protected] or ext. 6178 in the PR department. Thank
you.
Salute to Heroes Game
First Responder Discounts
Showcase Medic to your favorite non-profit, community
organization or school by scheduling a Medic Tour!
Medic Tours can be scheduled through the PR department
and provide an up-close and personal view of Medic from
inside an ambulance, to how we operate, CMED and the
large volume of response assets we have available at any
given time.
Please note Medic Tours are being conducted in lieu of the
current Demo Program suspension. The Demo
Program has been suspended due to the tight fiscal
budget and reduced overtime budgets. In addition,
off-the-clock use of Medic units/assets has also been
restricted due to labor law and liability issues associated
with off-duty employees using vehicles for personal, non-
agency related business.
If you have any questions about scheduling a Medic Tour
or the current Demo Program suspension, please contact
Community Relations Coordinator, Nikkie Perry at
[email protected] or ext. 6178. Thank you.
Medic Tours
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Visit Us on the Web!
www.medic911.com
MEDIC Mecklenburg EMS Agency
4525 Statesville Road
Charlotte, NC 28269
Tel: 704-943-6000
Fax: 704-943-6001
In-Service
Training
Medic Events
Holidays
Recertification Testing
Medic Calendar
2011 Training Schedule
AHA Refresher Class Schedule at CPCC
CPR
JUL - 18 (EMT 7402 05), 20 (EMT 7402 07) 1300—1700
19 (EMT 7402 06), 21 (EMT 7402 08) 1800—2200
OCT - 17 (EMT 7402 09), 19 (EMT 7402 11) 1300—1700
18 (EMT 7402 10), 20 (EMT 7402 12) 1800—2200
PALS
AUG - 22 (EMT 7208 05), 24 (EMT 7208 07) 1300—1700
23 (EMT 7208 06), 25 (EMT 7208 08) 1800—2200
ACLS
SEPT - 19 (EMT 7207 05) , 21 (EMT 7207 07) 1300—1700
20 (EMT 7207 06) , 22 (EMT 7207 08) 1800—2200
PRE-REGISTRATION IS MANDATORY FOR ALL CLASSES. ALL AHA CLASSES HELD AT CPCC.
April 2011 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 B
Rotary Scholarship
Application Deadline
2 B
3 B
Medic Night at the Bobcats Arena
1800—2200
4 A
5 A
6 B 7 B
8 A
9 A
Salute to Heroes
Hockey Game
Starts at1900
10 A
11 B
12 B
13 A
14A
15 B
16 B
17 B
18 A
19 A
20 B
March Makeup InService
0800—1200 Feb Makeup InService
1200—1600
21 B
22 A
Good Friday Holiday
Medic Offices Closed
23 A
24 A
25 B
26 B 27 A
Feb Makeup InService 0800—1200
March Makeup InService
1200—1600
28 A 29 B 30 B
Important Notes about 2011 AHA
Refresher Classes at CPCC
To register, call CPCC at 704.330.4223
All classes will be held at CPCC’s CENTRAL
CAMPUS in the BELK Building.
Actual classroom number will be given at time of pre-
registration
A minimum of 10 students is required for each class.
ACLS & PALS classes will only be HELD TWICE A
YEAR
PALS will be held in the months of FEB & AUG
ACLS will be held in the months of MAR & SEPT
There will be NO CPR Classes in APRIL