SanDiegoEmt7
Forum Captain
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This is going to be a long one.
Here's the situation:
My university, of 20,000+ undergraduates, 4,000+ graduate students, and unknown professors/staff, is currently served by our city's FD and a private company that has a partnership with said FD. Our campus currently has approximately 300-400 emergency calls for a year.
Current response times are around 6:30 for engines, and 8:30 for ambulances. with a few red flags where chest pain calls got 10-15min response times. The main reasoning for this is the station that serves our area does not house its own ambulance, rather a "floater" ambulance responds. Also this FD station serves a busy area and has great potential to be on another call.
Myself and other EMT-students are looking to form a campus based services that is staffed by student-EMTs, with 1 FT manager.
Our campus police department (which currently receives all 911 calls in the area, traiges, and calls the FD dispatch) is set up in manner which would incorporate us well. Everyone agrees the service would be great, the only concern is what type of service we should offer.
The choices are a Quick Response (non-transport) or BLS transport.
Quick Response: Some are in favor of a non-transport service that would only look to minimize response time as well as assess and package pts for ALS. This meets the basic goal of the program to lower response times, but I'm not sure what it really offers. They are currently looking at using golf carts, but our campus is sprawled over a large area ( a cross campus cart response could take 6-7 minutes, thats with out weaving through pedestrians) which might not even beat the engine on scene. On the other hand, the carts give us easy access to inner areas. We could also have a converted SUV that could respond getting to most areas within a couple minutes, but is it worth spending that much money on vehicle that can't transport.
BLS Transport: This would be the ideal plan. We would be dispatched to all medical calls coming into police dispatch. On those triaged as BLS we would respond alone for transport or non-transport assistance, for those deemed ALS or possibly ALS we would respond, and Fire and ALS would be called as they are now. When on scene after an ALS assessment the pt could be transported by us if deemed stable (and no Rx needed) or by them. In MCIs we could steal a medic off the engine and transport. But the question is whether our low call volume campus deserves this much attention. Also this system is obviously much more expensive and more complex to operate. Is it too much to try to start this kind of system form scratch? Is it necessary to start with the quick response service?
I see the benefits and costs of both systems. I want your opinions of what you feel would better aid the FD and be beneficial to the students. I want to establish a good working relationship with the FD, and I feel that this is will only happen if 1) our service is organized in a respectable manner 2) Our EMTs are well trained (this is already going to be taken care of). I don't want to be those college kids in the golf cart just viewed as an annoyance on scene.
Any thoughts?
Here's the situation:
My university, of 20,000+ undergraduates, 4,000+ graduate students, and unknown professors/staff, is currently served by our city's FD and a private company that has a partnership with said FD. Our campus currently has approximately 300-400 emergency calls for a year.
Current response times are around 6:30 for engines, and 8:30 for ambulances. with a few red flags where chest pain calls got 10-15min response times. The main reasoning for this is the station that serves our area does not house its own ambulance, rather a "floater" ambulance responds. Also this FD station serves a busy area and has great potential to be on another call.
Myself and other EMT-students are looking to form a campus based services that is staffed by student-EMTs, with 1 FT manager.
Our campus police department (which currently receives all 911 calls in the area, traiges, and calls the FD dispatch) is set up in manner which would incorporate us well. Everyone agrees the service would be great, the only concern is what type of service we should offer.
The choices are a Quick Response (non-transport) or BLS transport.
Quick Response: Some are in favor of a non-transport service that would only look to minimize response time as well as assess and package pts for ALS. This meets the basic goal of the program to lower response times, but I'm not sure what it really offers. They are currently looking at using golf carts, but our campus is sprawled over a large area ( a cross campus cart response could take 6-7 minutes, thats with out weaving through pedestrians) which might not even beat the engine on scene. On the other hand, the carts give us easy access to inner areas. We could also have a converted SUV that could respond getting to most areas within a couple minutes, but is it worth spending that much money on vehicle that can't transport.
BLS Transport: This would be the ideal plan. We would be dispatched to all medical calls coming into police dispatch. On those triaged as BLS we would respond alone for transport or non-transport assistance, for those deemed ALS or possibly ALS we would respond, and Fire and ALS would be called as they are now. When on scene after an ALS assessment the pt could be transported by us if deemed stable (and no Rx needed) or by them. In MCIs we could steal a medic off the engine and transport. But the question is whether our low call volume campus deserves this much attention. Also this system is obviously much more expensive and more complex to operate. Is it too much to try to start this kind of system form scratch? Is it necessary to start with the quick response service?
I see the benefits and costs of both systems. I want your opinions of what you feel would better aid the FD and be beneficial to the students. I want to establish a good working relationship with the FD, and I feel that this is will only happen if 1) our service is organized in a respectable manner 2) Our EMTs are well trained (this is already going to be taken care of). I don't want to be those college kids in the golf cart just viewed as an annoyance on scene.
Any thoughts?
