Mike McEvoy's Blog Posts Tagged 'Mike McEvoy' (6)

It is dangerous out there, no doubt about it. We have a responsibility to protect ourselves, our brothers and sisters and our patients from harm. The latest danger seems to me not to be carfentanil but paranoia. That's right, I'll call it "fentanyl analog paranoia."  It's bad enough that widespread misinformation has made prehospital providers the poster children for misuse of nitrile gloves.  Now, we're helping to spread ridiculous warnings about…

The mother of a 13-year-old girl gave me a wake-up call several weeks ago.  After her daughter overdosed on heroin, her husband rushed home from work following a panic-stricken call.  On the way, he passed an ambulance idling on a roadway several blocks from their home.  That same ambulance later arrived to provide care but only after law enforcement appeared on scene.  I knew exactly what the ambulance was doing--staging until the scene was safe.  Trying to explain this protocol to the…

FDNY is the largest fire department in the United States and is a trendsetter.  A recent report by the Citizens Budget Commission, a New York City watchdog organization puts some very interesting handwriting on the FDNY wall.  The report, "Twenty Years Later: Integrating Services In The New York City Fire Department" reflects growing call volumes, steadily declining fires and ever…

Having just weeded through a very large queue of FDIC 2016 speaker proposals, I thought I might share some tips and pearls for prospective conference speakers and presenters.  Three times or more each year, I cull through speaker proposals, grading and selecting those I believe would best serve the needs of FDIC, EMS Today (our sister magazine "JEMS" annual conference) and Pulse Check (a small New York State EMS Conference).  Some conferences limit the number of submissions, others don't. …

If you missed the announcement from HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell (published in the March 5, 2015 issue of the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine) on new Medicare targets for value-based payments, it's past time to wake up and smell the coffee!  Bottom line (and the reason EMS services need to be concerned): Medicare (aka HHS or Health and Human Services) plans to substantially accelerate…

A recent Jimmy Kimmel episode poking fun at EMS response times in New York City where Uber response time averages beat out EMS may not be so funny.  In an era where consumers can locate the nearest taxi, private car or rideshare from their mobile phone, it would seem that 9-1-1 is a bit behind.  Nationally, very few of us can see the locations of our apparatus and virtually nowhere can 9-1-1 callers learn the ETA of their assigned…