EMS facing a ‘growing problem’

[MMiz]

EMS facing a ‘growing problem’

It’s a pattern repeated at least several times a week each winter in Chester County: Emergency medical service workers have just picked up an injured person and have contacted a hospital only to be told the facility won’t accept more patients.

Unless the patient is in critical condition or demands to be taken to that particular hospital, another hospital has to be contacted to see if it has room. Some nights, three or four hospitals are busy and go on "check status," meaning emergency workers must call ahead before bringing any patients in for treatment. In many instances, EMS workers are told to take the patient somewhere else.

"It’s a problem throughout the county," East Whiteland EMS Captain Eric Nowaczyk said. "We understand hospitals are busy, but we still have a service to provide, and it’s tough to provide that service when we’re sent 20 minutes out of our way."

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[coloradoemt]

We have that problem in Denver quite a bit. Although we have many options to divert to, transport decisions could be changed on scene in some cases. Most of the time we are paged with divert status's. On my Volly dept. I always call dispatch to see if my ER of choice is in clear status or not before transport. That way if we are diverted to far away and I feel the need... Chopper go.

 

[Jon]

MAtt.... you beat me to it.

This has become a hot topic on the local Fire / EMS listserv.

And to tell you how close this is to me

East Whiteland EMS Captain Eric Nowaczyk

Thats SCREECH! My Squad Capt (and my squad)

Jon

 

[TTLWHKR]

Seems that all the small ER's up here are always on diversion. We were taking in a trauma patient b/c the chopper chose not to fly (Stat Medevac Sucks) in nice warm, clear weather w/ no wind... Got w/ in 30 miles, called in a Trauma Alert. They stated they were on stand-by, even gave us a room assignment. We called in the report, and they said "We're on diversion.. You'll have to go somewhere else - you should have been aware." They said they were on stand by w/ a bed available. They denied it, but it was telemerty so it was recorded. Still it would have been nice to be notified inside that 25 minutes time span that 16 beds filled up. Have they ever heard of Triage?

We had to divert to another hospital w/ no trauma team where they had to wait to call in a couple surgeons to perform a trauma exam. :angry:

Ba*tards.

If I'd have known that before we left the scene, I'd have headed south and had Life Lion meet us along the way somewhere.

 

[rescuecpt]

ERs in my area are not allowed to go on diversion unless there's some sort of biohazard/infectious disease outbreak that could harm incoming patients and providers. They can "request" that you divert but they very rarely do that because their own admin usually ends up yelling at them.

 

[MMiz]

Originally posted by MedicStudentJon@Mar 28 2005, 12:58 PM
MAtt.... you beat me to it.

This has become a hot topic on the local Fire / EMS listserv.

And to tell you how close this is to me

East Whiteland EMS Captain Eric Nowaczyk

Thats SCREECH! My Squad Capt (and my squad)

Jon

Interesting.

I work with one huge level one trauma center in the county and several large hospitals that can handle most emergencies. I've never been personally diverted, but usually once a month I'll see a page "Hospital X is status Y". Usually a hospital will only close to neuro / surgery.

I understand that all services dont have the luxury of having many hospitals within a 20 minute commute, and can see this really becoming a problem in some instances.

Really interesting article though.

 

[SCEMT-B]

We get that a lot down here too. We haev 5 hospitals in one county and 6 ERs (thats including the hospitals). The two stand alone ERs are used during "diversion" which can be a pain around here. The sad part is that almost all truama PTs have to go the MUSC and theyre ussualy on Diversion cause everyone wants to go there.