Mike McEvoy's Blog (23)

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…

E.V.E.N.T. or the EMS Voluntary Event Notification Tool is a reporting web site launched in 2012.  Backed by a long list of prestigious supporters, EVENT was designed to accept anonymous reports of EMS safety concerns in an effort to improve safety across the EMS spectrum.  The concept was similar to an airline safety system that accepted "near miss" reports from…

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…

Which is better: letting pain and muscle spasm immobilize an injured spine or doing it with the same tools we’ve used for decades?  Should hypothermia begin DURING the arrest?  Do response times make any difference whatsoever in patient outcomes?  The answers to these and other hot EMS topics were intensely debated in Dallas last week at the 14^th annual Gathering of Eagles, EMS State of the Science Conference.

The U.S. Metropolitan Municipalities EMS Medical Directors…

The recent news coverage of Chicago Fire Department losing big bucks to unreimbursed refusal of transport calls is not a problem unique to Chicago.  Sure, asthmatics will call for an albuterol treatment when caught without their own medications and some hypoglycemic patients…

The recently released Warner Bros. movie, Contagion details the fictional outbreak of a deadly and highly contagious novel respiratory virus.  While some aspects of the movie are improbable, a major outbreak of a deadly disease could really happen.  The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) was extensively involved in the production of Contagion which was partially filmed at their headquarters in Atlanta.  If anyone…

Not sure how I missed this last week, but our illustrious Centers for Disease Control (CDC) posted a May 16, 2011 set of instructions to help citizens prepare for a potential Zombie Apocalypse.  Now, I'm not sure about you, but this tongue-in-cheek instructional set seems a bit out of line for our national health information web source.  The CDC has long maintained high quality, authoritative, and well…

Just ask Lazar Greenfield, MD, a world renowned surgeon from the University of Michigan.  Dr. Greenfield's recent Valentines Day editorial in the American College of Surgeons (ACS) newsletter cost him the Presidency of the 77,000 member group he was poised to assume in October.  In the surgery news editorial, which some found demeaning to women, Greenfield described semen as a female mood enhancer and suggested that, "there's a deeper bond…

The NFPA 1917 Standard for Automotive Ambulances draft closed for comment in December 2010 and the Committee met in Dallas during February 2011 to review the 1,785 comments received. Many comments and proposals for change were duplicative: 133 received on Vehicle Data Recorders (VDRs), 136 on maximum top speed of 72 MPH, 131 on estimated in-service vehicle weight, 132 on visual indicators of tire…

At the January 26, 2011 meeting of the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) Medical Device Advisory Committee, Circulatory Systems Devices Panel, a recommendation emerged to tighten regulation of AEDs (Automatic External Defibrillators).  Currently, AEDs are listed as Class III (high risk) medical devices being…