The holidays can be a stressful enough time for many people—so much to do with little time to get it done, longer nights, colder temperatures, tempting food that derails your diet, family, shopping, work deadlines, crowds and traffic, budgets—it can feel overwhelming! EMS calls might add additional stress during...
Department
Posts authored by the Virginia Beach Department of EMS
Changes to how we handle STROKE
A message primarily to: Core Ops Members Firefighters Changes to how we handle STROKE New screening tool, new receiving facility BEFAST For a couple of decades or so, our preferred stroke screening exam was the Cincinnati Prehospital Stroke Scale. It was composed of the following elements: F: Facial droop,...
The Preemption Pause
A message primarily to: Operations members The Preemption Pause Not so fast, buckaroo I had planned for this to be my Sterile Cockpit article, but there’s something else we want to share with you first. Recent changes Clearly our earlier articles have had an impact. Personnel have been doing...
Patients in Handcuffs
Researched and written by Capt. M. Brown We commonly associate drug overdose calls with opiates with good reason. However there are other illicit drugs found in Virginia Beach. When paired with the heat of summer stretching into November, some drugs can be seen as a different medical condition. Flakka...
Virginia Beach Medically Friendly Shelter
In 2009, the City of Virginia Beach added Medically Friendly Sheltering (MFS) to our city shelter plan. EMS was identified as the lead agency and began the daunting task of identifying sites, writing contracts, obtaining equipment, identifying staffing, and drawing up plans to operate an MFS. Medically Friendly Shelters...
Tight Dispatch Cycle
A message primarily to: Operations members Tight Dispatch Cycle Another key concept from the new radio Communications Manual First, a brief recap The main message from the last article in this series was that we want all on-air personnel to have a mental Common Operating Picture of how calls...
Common Operating Picture
A message primarily to: Operations members Common Operating Picture A key concept from the new radio Communications Manual Background There’s a feature in the new CAD that’s supposed to help reduce response times. It’s called Automatic Resource Location (ARL), and it is GPS-based. When an incident needs an ambulance,...
New “Hospital Number” Format
If you have transported to Sentara Leigh recently, you may have noticed that the patient sticker number is 14 digits with no dashes. Some of you have been creative in trying to validate your records! 🙂 The Sentara system is altering their registration process and programs and this includes...
Mishap Report
A message primarily to: All members Mishap Report It will never happen to you, right? Here are summaries of mishaps recently reported to the EMS Department. What could have been done to prevent these? A duty crew found a small mystery dent on an ambulance’s back bumper. An ambulance...
New radio Communications Manual
A message primarily to: Operations members New radio Communications Manual Radio traffic reflects organizational efficiency and the attitude of members When most of us are on duty, using the radio and MDT systems may only be an afterthought. As interns, we used those systems the way the released members...