Long Transport Times?

[redwolfef6]

Approximately 30-45 minutes nonemergent. Frankly I don't think we shave a whole lot of time when :blob6: we have to go emergent.

[Oilersfan1]

We have between a 30 -50 minute travel time to the hospital which is very tough in critical calls.

Cheers

[bbbrammer]

Any of our closest hospitals are at best either 30miles or 30minutes away depending on which one we go to and how we get there. Most of our transports run from 30 to 45mins, and that is running hot at 90mph. Needless to say, any of the 14 hospitals we run to are a little too far for emergency patients. Luckily mediflight responds pretty quickly, but it is still a long way out here.

[coolparamedic]

1 1/2 hours good road conditions, that doesn't include patient requests. The Nearest cath lab is 80 miles away. Nearest Level 1 trauma facility is 120 miles. Nearest helicopter is 45 mins away from the hospital, fixed wing won't land at our airport.

[spenac]

Our nearest hospital is 90 miles from our station. Many of our calls require us to go about an hour to reach the scene then travel back to our community then turn and head the 90 miles to the nearest hospital. Air support whats that? We can reach the hospital prior to the nearest air support even getting to the hospital. Some air services say they will come to us but they will have to refuel near the hospital so we usually meet them at the hospital. We run 1 ambulance and average more than 2 calls per day. Average turn around time for a basic run starting near our station is 4 hours. Much more if serious calls or traveling to outer areas, there will be no ambulance in the area for more than 6 hours, been out because of 1 call close to 12 hours, because once reach the small town hospital we sometimes have to continue care there to :-({|= . Nearest mutual aid is 1 hour away, 30 miles from hospital, staffed with 1 ambulance if they're available. Highway is mountains and curvy to hospital. We are about 2000 foot elevation and we get around as high as 5500 foot elevation. Up and down round and run, lots of bumps and ear popping. We got new ambulance end of Dec 06 and have already passed 10000 miles on it. Some medics from the city have tried ride outs and said they couldn't handle the stress of being with serious patients so long in the ambulance. Wrecks we may end up with multiple serious patients on board, but thats life for rural medics. Myself I got lost when I rode a few times at services closer to hospitals, how can you do anything to the patient, in fact many times seems might as well load them and go the 5 minutes to the hospital rather than messing around on scene. I know theres others probably even more rural but many of the posts on here so far don't sound to hard to deal with the distance

[Just Plain Ruff]

Spenac, that's a terrible set of circumstances you have. I'd hate to need an ambulance when you guys are already out on a call. You are saying that you have not a lick of local backup? If so maybe reevaluation is in order but then again if it works then don't change it right?

what state do you work in?

[Niftymedi911]

My agency, Lee County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) is a Florida certified ground and rotor-wing Advanced Life Support Provider. Lee County EMS covers more than 1,100 square miles with 32 Advanced Life Support ambulances, two twin-engine helicopters, two ALS non-transport units, and on-call bicycle paramedics. Each ambulance consists minimally of a State-certified Paramedic and EMT. In 2006, Lee County EMS responded to nearly 75,000 emergency calls and transported more than 1000 patients by air. Lee County's western border is composed of seventy five (75) barrier islands that dot Southwest Florida's gulf coast.

My average response time is 9 minutes and transport ranges from 5 to 45 minutes depending on location of the call and of the hospital and traffic. We have 6 hospitals and 1 Level 2 Trauma Center in Lee County.

Those of you reffering to "Wham Bam Medics" its easy to say that if you can't handle the quick response and transport times. You have to learn to be quick and accurate with your assessments. Once you get in the groove its great. I can do a full ALS assessment, start an IV, draw labs, hook em up to the monitor and do a 12 lead, throw em on a cannula in 8 minutes. I try to do my assessment on scene, IV, labs, 12 lead, O2 enroute. My partner has the HammerHead (Our tablet computer which we use to do our trip sheets), with all the info so by the time I get to the ER, I'll I have to do is type my narrative enroute, and print my trip sheet. If its a bad call and don't have all the time to devote to an IV or monitor nothing but my airway then if have to I'll grab a FF to ride in with me to accomplish everything.

[Just Plain Ruff]

Nifty, I'm not saying that you are being untruthful but getting all that done in 8 minutes is really fast. I don't say I believe you but like Jetblue the airline says now "If someone says it happened, then it happened). But I'm gonna have to say I still don't believe you.

full assessment, iv, blood draw, 12 lead and whatever else in 8 minutes that's to me not believable. What I'd like to know is do you have all the prep work done by someone like your partner or are you saying you do all the prep work and the skills in 8 minutes.

If so I'd like to see you do it in 8 minutes.

Again, I'm not calling you a liar I just have worked for both fast paced services and slow services and to get all that stuff done in 8 minutes you have to be one of the fastest medics out there. It sounds like you are really rushed and I'd be afraid things would get missed.

I think that services that require you to do all that so fast are doing a disservice to their patients that they take care of.

You may be the best medic in the world but to get all that in in 8 minutes is stretching credibility.

Again, if you say you can do it in that length of time then by all means I guess you can.

I've worked with well over 200 medics in my 15 years and I don't remember any of them doing all that in 8 minutes. That's just too fast and is chock with the possibilities that you will make a mistake.

But then again, if you say it happens and you can do it without issue then Hoorah

[vs-eh?]

Nifty, I'm not saying that you are being untruthful but getting all that done in 8 minutes is really fast. I don't say I believe you but like Jetblue the airline says now "If someone says it happened, then it happened). But I'm gonna have to say I still don't believe you.

full assessment, iv, blood draw, 12 lead and whatever else in 8 minutes that's to me not believable. What I'd like to know is do you have all the prep work done by someone like your partner or are you saying you do all the prep work and the skills in 8 minutes.

If so I'd like to see you do it in 8 minutes.

What is even more impressive is that judging by his most recent posts (say about a month ago), he is an EMT-B.

Lee County EMS must be one of the greatest EMS service's in the world if a person with 3 months education can accurately assess a complex medical patient and have appropriate Tx and transport on the go within 8 minutes...Sorry it ain't happening...

Maybe this whole 2 year college thing up here for BLS is overrated...

I call BS too...

[spenac]

Spenac, that's a terrible set of circumstances you have. I'd hate to need an ambulance when you guys are already out on a call. You are saying that you have not a lick of local backup? If so maybe reevaluation is in order but then again if it works then don't change it right?

what state do you work in?

There is no other service here, nearest mutual aid is 60 miles away. There are only 4 full time medics (1 paramedic, 1 intermediate, 1 basic, 1 eca ), 1 part timer (1 24 hr shift/week), and 1 seasonal part timer ( 2 24hr shifts/wk over course of 4 months), and can't get volunteers as they don't want to miss that much work. Wish we had more people and at least 1 more ambulance but the city will not spend the money. One of these days one of the familys that have someone die while we're gone will sue and get lots of money. The state of Texas recommended two ambulances, each staffed by the equivalent of 6 full timers and 2 part timers. Other experts have recommended we have a third ambulance available as well. Can't get the state to require the changes so everyone suffers. But hey ambulance losses money as most here live at or below poverty, are illegal, or have medicaid and think that covers them so when they get the bill don't pay. As long as don't make money city refuses to pay to improve it, but when one of the city's big wigs loses someone when we're already out they'll blame us and still not fix it. :-({|= Now don't get me wrong we keep working with what we have because we love to help people but the areas growing and if we don't grow with it we'll all be burned out. I'll get off soap box now. I realize all ems needs to improve. Have a great day.