Radio vs Phone reports

sneauxpod said:
hm that would make sense. lol speaking of wireless in the truck, you ever hack into it? i can smell a new thread coming on.
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well, my old partner had too much time on his hands, so before we got the wireless, he did enable the bluetooth on the toughbook to connect with his phone and unlimited data plan, which allowed us limited wireless access when we needed it for work (patient looks ups, chart uploading, etc).

Since we were based at a station, we never had to hack into the wireless in the truck. into the station's wireless system, well, lets just say we were able to surf the internet on our portable devices. whether or not the bosses knew about it was another story :ph34r:
 
Hacked it? Heck our toughbooks don't even have a firewall. There is a written policy about not using them unnecessarily but if it's remotely work related, I'm using it.
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I like your style lol
 
Tigger said:
You would think it would be in the hospital's best interest to tape those calls too...
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One would think, but everything goes through the dispatchers at the EOC, so perhaps they figured "no need"?
 
sneauxpod said:
Oh you fancy huh? lol
i wish we had awesome stuff like that. would make life a lot easier -.-
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Well, Seattle and all of the surrounding counties DO have a system like this, but BLS/Private ambulance is not permitted on the county 800 system. For example, Seattle Medics use either the TRAUMA DOC or MEDIC ONE DOC talk group on the Seattle Trunked System. Those go straight to HMC.
 
n7lxi said:
Well, Seattle and all of the surrounding counties DO have a system like this, but BLS/Private ambulance is not permitted on the county 800 system. For example, Seattle Medics use either the TRAUMA DOC or MEDIC ONE DOC talk group on the Seattle Trunked System. Those go straight to HMC.
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Ahh gotcha. I think everyone runs on the same here, except Detroit of course.
 
My local department's ambulances have built in cell phones, as well as radios for calling in reports. The phone has the local hospitals already in the address book. When I call in reports, I now prefer the phone, so that if the hospital were to ask a question, I can answer without the patient getting involved or offended. I remember calling in one over a radio, and was asked a question I thought was completely reasonable, but the patient heard it and got all offended. I can't remember what it was now, but I do remember the unhappy/offended patient.
 
Ehh Washington, Michigan theyre basically the same. Especially in the weather department
 
n7lxi said:
Well, Seattle and all of the surrounding counties DO have a system like this, but BLS/Private ambulance is not permitted on the county 800 system. For example, Seattle Medics use either the TRAUMA DOC or MEDIC ONE DOC talk group on the Seattle Trunked System. Those go straight to HMC.
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I think the HEAR radio is trunked as well and we do have access to the TRAUMA DOC and MEDIC DOC talk groups but as mentioned we aren't supposed to use them. I do enjoy listening to the MEDICs give their reports to Medical Control though. Quite informitive, especially when you see the Medic unit at HMC.

Not sure how it was when you were here but not every call goes to HMC. HMC is TRAUMA DOC for Seattle. However Shoreline and some of the north end units have their reports going to Northwest Hospital. Eastside units go to Overlake. South end to Valley.

One thing I don't like is relying on Medics as our Medical Control. They are knowledgable enough but seems like a waste of time if you don't need a medic response but have a question.
 
Nope. HEAR is a conventional, VHF channel...155.34. It's the same frequency for every hospital, only the PL tone is different. (Radio geek mode. Sorry)

And there were Talk Groups for ALL of the hospitals, but since no privates are allowed on them, they are very rarely used, although you may hear a king county medic radio to Valley in Renton when they're on the way with something good. When I was there I made all of my reports via phone because the HEAR radios sucked.
 
n7lxi said:
Nope. HEAR is a conventional, VHF channel...155.34. It's the same frequency for every hospital, only the PL tone is different. (Radio geek mode. Sorry)

And there were Talk Groups for ALL of the hospitals, but since no privates are allowed on them, they are very rarely used, although you may hear a king county medic radio to Valley in Renton when they're on the way with something good. When I was there I made all of my reports via phone because the HEAR radios sucked.
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Sorry I'm not a radio geek so I don't really understand all the terminology, lol. I do know that they are replacing the radios in all of our 100+ ambulances with digital and the hospitals are also upgrading.

I hate giving Short reports, I prefer going to HMC because they don't require a short. When I do give a short I prefer the radio because its quicker and I have yet to have issues with radio.

My first week of FTO I was up in Everett and Providence - Colby requires the Short Report by phone. Our cell phone crapped out, a SIM card issue, so we resorted to using our personal cell phones to call in reports. I hated doing that.
 
I hate giving long reports on the radio, a call in should NOT be any longer than 30 seconds unless you're asking for orders.
 
Mind are usually less than 20 seconds. :)

and on low priority calls, when it's a nurse I know at the radio, I try to work in a funny word, like "cattwampus" or "discombobulated".

Always good for a laugh.
 
I prefer phone reports for anything complex, and actually getting orders. Too often, the base command has issues using the radio patch.

In my prime 911 gig, if I'm going to 2 out-of-area trauma centers, I have to call that EMS Region's MEDCOM and get patched through to the hospital - because they record the calls. It works OK.
 
In the MSP metro area, we used to use cell phones for all of our reports except when there was an MCI occurring, when we were supposed to switch back to our regional report talkgroups to the east metro and west metro medical resource control center (EMRCC and WMRCC).

Then, in 2007, we had the 35w bridge collapse and although there were 70 patients, WMRCC was only aware of 2 patients. During the after action reporting, it was determined threat everyone just went back to the easiest and most comfortable way of doing things, not the way that makes it easiest to manage an incident or Traci patients and their destinations.

About 6 months after the bridge collapse, w decided to change how we communicate, so that when another large incident occurs, we have the muscle memory to function effectively. Cell phones were removed and now we use our digital Trunked radio system which cost a gazillion dollars to accomplish everything. Patient reports to WMRCC follow a simple format (age, sex, chief complaint, triage color and ETA) that doesn't require you to regurgitate needless information that you will regurgitate again when you get to the hospital anyways.

Medical control requests also use the radio. An initial request is made on our WMRCC talkgroup and you are instructed to switch to the appropriate hospital talkgroup and WMRCC calls the ER and gets the doc on the radio. PHI over the radio is completely legal according to HIPPA, and is considered an incidental disclosure. That being said, if you are in a place where everyone has a police scanner and you have a simple analog radio system, maybe not the best idea.

We have the luxury of a very nice statewide radio system in Minnesota, not everyone does. Our process works very well for US, but i don't advocate a cookie cutter approach.
 
WestMetroMedic said:
In the MSP metro area, we used to use cell phones for all of our reports except when there was an MCI occurring, when we were supposed to switch back to our regional report talkgroups to the east metro and west metro medical resource control center (EMRCC and WMRCC).
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I just want to make sure I understand this. everyone used cell phones, except during an MCI. during an mci, you are to use the radio to call in all your reports, so instead of every report getting a direct line to a doctor, who then calls the receiving hospital, you all share one channel, and the receiving hospital has to listen in for reports that are coming to them?
WestMetroMedic said:
Then, in 2007, we had the 35w bridge collapse and although there were 70 patients, WMRCC was only aware of 2 patients. During the after action reporting, it was determined threat everyone just went back to the easiest and most comfortable way of doing things, not the way that makes it easiest to manage an incident or Traci patients and their destinations.
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interesting.... seems the failure was either between dispatch and the receiving hospitals, med control and the receiving hospitals, or the unit and the receiving hospitals (if they are supposed to call and notify that they are transporting to them). regardless of the medium used (phone or radio), the message wasn't delivered properly by the sending party. I am failing to see the fault being due to the cell phone usage.
WestMetroMedic said:
About 6 months after the bridge collapse, w decided to change how we communicate, so that when another large incident occurs, we have the muscle memory to function effectively. Cell phones were removed and now we use our digital Trunked radio system which cost a gazillion dollars to accomplish everything. Patient reports to WMRCC follow a simple format (age, sex, chief complaint, triage color and ETA) that doesn't require you to regurgitate needless information that you will regurgitate again when you get to the hospital anyways.
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so you get away from a private call between you and the doc (with someone recording it for legal reasons), and are speaking over the radio. is your medical control always located at the hospital ER you are transporting to, or can your med control be in the east region while your transporting to the west?
WestMetroMedic said:
Medical control requests also use the radio. An initial request is made on our WMRCC talkgroup and you are instructed to switch to the appropriate hospital talkgroup and WMRCC calls the ER and gets the doc on the radio. PHI over the radio is completely legal according to HIPPA, and is considered an incidental disclosure. That being said, if you are in a place where everyone has a police scanner and you have a simple analog radio system, maybe not the best idea.
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Again, same question as before, how is this any different than using a cell phone? pick up phone, call WMRCC, say you are transporting to ABC hospital, place on hold, WMRCC transfers to ER asks for doc, you speak to doctor. the only difference is a cell phone is must more private, allows for two way conversation (and interruption during important questions), and is cheaper.

Our process used to be as follows: medic requests a doc, given a med channel. dispatch patches the medical channel with the appropriate base station. dispatch pages medical or surgical doctor, waits, waits might page again, doctor picks up the portable, and talks. most common problems? med control doctor busy with a patient, no one charging the med control portable radio, or doctor taking radio home with them, along with the usual poor reception and noisy environments of the ER. and dispatch calls the receiving hospital and advises them of the patient condition

We have since went to a phone system. medic calls dispatch and requests a doc, transfer is made to surgical or medical, doc answers. biggest problem? phones don't get charged or the get dropped in the toilet. and dispatch calls the receiving hospital and advises them of the patient condition

The latter is much easier. we keep the radios as a backup, but no one every uses them anymore. i doubt the doctors would even know where the radios were
 
We don't even have radios. We have to sign out a cell phone and a pager when we clock in. The cell phone acts as our radio, it has the "walkie talkie" feature to it. So for example if a storm like hurricane sandy rolls through and knocks down the cell phone tower, we won't be able to call in or be called by our dispatchers.
When asked if we are going to get real radios, their reply was " it costs too much money". When asked to have our trucks fixed, their reply was "we only have one mechanic". It's embarrassing to tell people "yea its held together by duct tape, but it'll hold"
 
bill williams said:
We don't even have radios. We have to sign out a cell phone and a pager when we clock in. The cell phone acts as our radio, it has the "walkie talkie" feature to it. So for example if a storm like hurricane sandy rolls through and knocks down the cell phone tower, we won't be able to call in or be called by our dispatchers.
When asked if we are going to get real radios, their reply was " it costs too much money". When asked to have our trucks fixed, their reply was "we only have one mechanic". It's embarrassing to tell people "yea its held together by duct tape, but it'll hold"
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A "real" radio system could honestly put a lot of privates under. Letting the cell phone company absorb the cost of towers and maintnance makes sense, especially if your not running a 911 system. Not to mention most systems would be knocked out by something like Sandy anyway.
 
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