Making your job easier??

[lisakaren11]

I am not an EMT but I am asking if you would share some of your knowledge and expertise. I am a student majoring in Biomedical Engineering and am beginning a senior design project. My task is to find a piece of equipment that is used by an EMT that is not currently portable, but could be more beneficial to the EMT if it were made portable. Can anyone give me suggestions? Then, I can begin to work on a design to make it portable and possilby help to make your jobs easier. Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

[KEVD18]

there isnt an awful lot that we need that isnt already portable. you might, however, improve the design of a currently portable design.

some ideas:
stretcher
stairchair
suction
autopulse type devices
extrication equipment.

good luck

 

[mikie]

Can you make our defibrillators lighter? Maybe even smaller? Not that it's obnoxiously heavy (LP12) but can often be hard to carry in tight spaces especially if it's attached to the patient!

And in general, making the equipment lighter and more portable would be great....use new, lighter metals for O2 tanks & regulators, and like KEVD said

 

[Sasha]

Can you design something that EMT/Medics currently do not use? Like i'm sure patient survival rate would improve if we could some how figure out a way to carry and store whole typo O negative blood. Saline, while it does do well in raising blood pressure is not an adequate replacement when there is just no RBCs left.
Pretty much everything an EMT uses is portable. Unless you could make sirens portable to get through those event crowds that just don't wanna move!!

 

[mikie]

Make our patients more portable!!!

 

[Sasha]

I like that one! Or design the stryker so it would be more affordable and my local EMS will pick it up!

 

[BossyCow]

A portable ER would be nice! Portable OR complete with surgeons.

 

[mycrofft]

There's been a whole lot of research done. Look around first.

1. How to make anything more dependable and acceptable to people as patients, administrators, practitioners and the public.
2. Cordless EKG..no more wiring harness flipping around.
3. Modules to slip into civilian vehicles like SUV's or pickup trucks to create instant 1 or 2 person basic ambulances; make em so they don't outdate and can be stockpiled, then transported to disaster perimeters and distributed.
4. Revise the Veniset concept so we can start bloodless IV's but not have a bloody needle flipping around on the end of a wire.
5. Snatch and run body immobilizer for impending doom situations (see Wilderness etc department).
6. Ambulance intercoms and air conditioners which are sufficient and do not break down.

 

[mycrofft]

Bossycow, it's called a M*A*S*H

TEMPER tents, mods, etc.

 

[lisakaren11]

A huge thanks to all who have responded! Some good ideas for me to take a deeper look into. You all know what difficult jobs you have and you get so little compensation or appreciation for it. You deserve the best equipment that medical technology can provide. I could never do what you do (and I have a Bachelor's degree in nursing and an RN license...) May God bless all of you with a little extra something when you get to heaven!!

 

[Hastings]

Well, if you're really skilled, I wouldn't mind one of those portable X-Ray machines. But then again, the full-size X-Ray machines aren't even perfectly efficient yet. So we may have to wait on that one.

 

[KEVD18]

the only way field xrays would work is if you could send them to a radiologist to be read. now, i have seen films shot by fixed xray machines have to be re-shot because the radiologist didnt feel they were clear enough to read so i doubt there will ever be an imager that could fit in a truck that did the job well enough to make it worth it

come to think about it, how would you develop a film on a truck? isnt there chemicals and machines and what not involved in that? theres barely enough room for all the gear we carry now, where am i going to fit an xray machine and all the crap that goes with it?

 

[MagicTyler]

They already have portable x-ray equipment. And any good radiology department these days is all digital, film is WAY out of date... But why would an EMT need to take an x-ray? EMS is about getting a patient stable and getting to the ER, not diagnosing fractures. Taking an x-ray would waste too much time.

And its a 2 year degree to get an x-ray license... 6 months to get a limited license to shoot extremities only...

 

[Hastings]

the only way field xrays would work is if you could send them to a radiologist to be read. now, i have seen films shot by fixed xray machines have to be re-shot because the radiologist didnt feel they were clear enough to read so i doubt there will ever be an imager that could fit in a truck that did the job well enough to make it worth it

come to think about it, how would you develop a film on a truck? isnt there chemicals and machines and what not involved in that? theres barely enough room for all the gear we carry now, where am i going to fit an xray machine and all the crap that goes with it?

I think you fed my statement then. Of course it's not realistic right now. Two points that you confirmed.

1. The real X-Ray machines are far from perfect / efficient as of this time.
2. The technology may not exist yet in context (although look how fast cameras went from a dozen chemicals to electronic).

Although, about reading them, I disagree. That's like saying we need to send our EKG strips to a cardiologist before they can do any good. In the future, EMS providers can be taught how to recognize the obvious and important from X-Rays (and whatever other diagnostic tools are adapted for the field) and use the results to aid in treatment (whatever exciting and advanced treatments come about in the future).

 

[MagicTyler]

The ARRT would never allow ems to take x-rays. Radiologic Technologists (x-ray techs) have a lot of training. It would just be impractial for an emt to go through that training.

 

[Hastings]

The ARRT would never allow ems to take x-rays. Radiologic Technologists (x-ray techs) have a lot of training. It would just be impractial for an emt to go through that training.

I find this attitude so sad! Is this not a science fiction project? Something for the future? My future of EMS is awesome. We have all kinds of new diagnostic tools, a higher level of training, and new ways to treat different injuries. Why so opposed to striving for something neat?

Pfft, I bet they said the same thing about starting IVs and giving meds back in the day when my instructors got their first EMT jobs (they're pretty old).

 

[emtphil]

The ARRT would never allow ems to take x-rays. Radiologic Technologists (x-ray techs) have a lot of training. It would just be impractial for an emt to go through that training.

Yeah, but since most x-ray systems are digital now, why not find a way to shoot an x-ray then transmit it to a hospital where a radiologist can look at it?

 

[BossyCow]

Yeah, but since most x-ray systems are digital now, why not find a way to shoot an x-ray then transmit it to a hospital where a radiologist can look at it?

How would it alter your treatment of the pt in the field?

 

[Hastings]

How would it alter your treatment of the pt in the field?

Who knows yet! That's the exciting part. With new portable diagnostic tools comes new portable treatment tools. And otherwise.

As of this time, not much. I mean, other than getting the information to the hospital faster and getting to the treatment faster.

 

[MagicTyler]

I can just see x-rays as being really bad in the field. "Doesn't look broken to me" you have no need to know if its broken or not, it should always be assumed it is...