Andrew74 Posted July 24, 2012 Posted July 24, 2012 Hey everyone, My name is Andrew, and im working on starting a on campus EMS group. The school seems to like the idea, but is slow to help me with anything. Any ideas or if anyone went through another schools EMS group that could give me a few pointers would be greatly appreciated. Thanks 1
celticcare Posted July 24, 2012 Posted July 24, 2012 Hi Andrew, welcome to the City. Just a few questions to help us with answering your question What sort of size campus is it that you are serving? Are there boarding houses (hostels, fraternities etc) on the grounds? How far is your campus from a local EMS provider? Is your campus an alcohol free campus or had problems in the past with drugs and alcohol? What sort of staff are you wanting to have? EMT? CFR? Does your campus have a medical/nursing/EMS program that you would utilise students from these faculties within your team? What sort of access to equipment (Jump bags, uniforms, pagers, RT units, Defibrillators etc) would your team have? How would your team be dispatched (students call a university operator who then pages you to respond?) Would your lecturers support the idea if their students had to leave class suddenly to attend to a call? Who would oversee your reports and medical documentation and medication administration? All the joyful legal stuff and behind the scenes elements that get set up into running a campus EMS unit, I know people who have set them up before and I have been involved in similar. Would be happy to help as I am sure that others will be too. Post in more forums also though just so we know that you are serious about EMS, just so that we know we are giving the best help we can to someone who is dedicated to the field. Welcome again to the site, sorry about the bombardment of questions and if you can help answer some of them, then we can begin to help. Scotty 1
DFIB Posted July 24, 2012 Posted July 24, 2012 (edited) Good on you for having and interest in your college community and wanting to contribute. I don't know what level of care and you are planning to provide or if you plan to transport patients but will work under the assumption of an EMT level non transport. EMS group. The first and most important resource you will have to find is Human resources. People with the training and experience to cover patient care, administration, logistics and legal aspects. The quality of you founding members will dictate the reputation and success in the progression of your group. I would try and stay away from whackers and adrenaline junkies. Providers with soft skills make provide better patient care. I would suggest looking for serious, disciplined people who will be committed to your organization and cause. You will need a medical director that will be responsible for everything that your EMS group does. Get advise from a lawyer as to the legalities of what you are planning to do. Facing legal charges would be devastating to the group. Remember that although students tend to be forgiving their parents will not. This said your team ideally should have a Physician, Field Supervisor, some form of dispatcher, a person to keep records and paperwork, a lawyer and your field personnel. Keeping a professional image and proper documentation will keep you in business. Second, you will need to have a system of continued training and quality control where you supervise and review every detail of your EMS group. This will allow you to correct mistakes and deficiencies as well as continue to improve your service to your student community. This should stem from your medical direction and trickle down into every aspect of your EMS group. Third you will need equipment. Equipment means funding and knowledge of the equipment available. Not only do you need good equipment but you will need to have the appropriate equipment Donated equipment must be carefully inspected to meet safety thresholds. And finally but not least you will need insurance as a group and possibly even insurance for your individual providers. Here is a link that considers reasons for needing insurance and a provider as well. I have no personal or financial interest in this company. I am sure there are some aspects that I am overlooking but I hope this will help you in your thought process. Best wishes to you Andrew. Please keep us posted as to the progress of your project. I congratulate you for your desire to help your fellow students. EDIT: Where are you at? EDIT: Here is the promised link. http://www.hpso.com/professional-liability-insurance/need-coverage.jsp Edited July 24, 2012 by DFIB
Just Plain Ruff Posted July 24, 2012 Posted July 24, 2012 You might also want to contact Washington University in St Louis, Last time I checked which was I admit a long time ago, they had a student run EMS system, and I don't know if they have it anymore. They may have gotten rid of it. But they ran a pretty good tight ship back then. 1
celticcare Posted July 24, 2012 Posted July 24, 2012 Here are some links to some EMS units running at universities, whilst not all are American, perhaps some ideas could be gained. Could your squad run as an extension of the local EMS provider, like they can advertise that they have a team allocated to your college and that then provides you with a medical director, facilities for continuing ed and an auditor for paperwork? http://www.sjapeel.ca/node/36 http://uoserres.com/about/ http://www.campusemergencyresponseteam.ca/about.php http://www.uoguelph.ca/frt/html/about.html
DFIB Posted July 25, 2012 Posted July 25, 2012 Here are some links to some EMS units running at universities, whilst not all are American, perhaps some ideas could be gained. Could your squad run as an extension of the local EMS provider, like they can advertise that they have a team allocated to your college and that then provides you with a medical director, facilities for continuing ed and an auditor for paperwork? http://www.sjapeel.ca/node/36 http://uoserres.com/about/ http://www.campuseme...am.ca/about.php http://www.uoguelph....html/about.html This would solve almost all of the difficulties regarding logistics. Good call.
celticcare Posted July 25, 2012 Posted July 25, 2012 This would solve almost all of the difficulties regarding logistics. Good call. Well thank you, thank you very much *doing my best Elvis voice*
Andrew74 Posted July 25, 2012 Author Posted July 25, 2012 Thanks everyone for all the tips. Responding to a few of the questions, we have a small campus about 1,500 students, we do have Greek life, we are in the city, but the problem i have noticed is that they only put 2 trucks up at night, and thats when most of the emergencies occur. So the dispatch center sends in a neighboring company and it can take up to 15 min. The school does allow alcohol, and does not have a major drug problem. I would like to start a QRS so it would be composed of EMT-B and First Responders. Our school does have a nursing program, and a good pre-med program. During the day i would not like to have students to leave class, since we do have a health center in a good place and the campus police are good with helping students in case of an emergency. We have access to a multitude of medical supplies. Our health center, which is run by St. Lukes Hospital is more then willing to back me and supply the QRS. I already got a set of non-medical SOPs written up that I molded from a template. Thanks everyone for your support and ideas! Andrew 1
celticcare Posted July 25, 2012 Posted July 25, 2012 Anything I can do to help please don't hesitate to sing out, keep us informed as this sounds like an exciting adventure to be had Scotty 1
Kiwiology Posted July 25, 2012 Posted July 25, 2012 I think you are best to set up a group of First Responders on campus. We're taking a university setting so it's going to be fairly unlikely you are encountering any people who are critically unwell or seriously traumatically injured who have a need high high level, complex clinical interventions such as at a high speed road traffic crash. Even if you are a residential campus and get people who are deeply unconscious with poor airway and breathing from alcohol poisoning on a Friday night the overwhelming evidence supports good, basic intervention and airway care over anything fancy in the very short term out of hospital setting. Cardiac arrest is probably the most serious situation you will encounter, it most likely be rare (a few times a year) and again the overwhelming scientific evidence supports high quality CPR and using a defibrillator as being the most important interventions over fancy ACLS magic. If you want to educate people to the Emergency Medical Technician level then that's probably not a bad idea; however it is probably not necessary. At the most you are going to need somebody who can do basic oxygen administration, obtain basic obs, use an OPA and a bag mask, operate an AED, do simple first aid for controlling bleeding, treat burns with cold water and cling film and assist with administering auto injector adrenaline for anaphylaxis. As far as what medical equipment you are going to need it is not a great deal; AED, first aid supplies, a set of OPAs, bag mask, a box of glad wrap, some drawer sheets and a couple blankets (handy for keeping nosey people out of view and the patient warm!) and a BP cuff and stethoscope.
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