JEMS Editor Emeritus A.J. Heightman talks with EMS visionary, researcher and educator extraordinaire Mike Taigman about living with stress and stress management in EMS, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
EMS1 article by Mike Taigman - 5 ways for fire and EMS professionals to support our colleagues in public health as they battle COVID-19
EMS1 article by Jay Arthur, Scott Dorsey, and Mike Taigman - Tracking COVID-19 cases, PPE supply and ambulance turnaround times to inform EMS response
Inside EMS Podcast featured on EMS1 - On this podcast, co-hosts Chris Cebollero and Kelly Grayson are joined by EMS guru and EMS1 columnist Mike Taigman. During the pandemic, stress levels have been on the rise, along with frustration and anger, and Taigman shares ways to handle and reduce those emotions.
GOAL: Awareness of the Syndrome, early identification of its signs that can be recognized by parents/caregivers, EMS systems, and other first responders, with transport to an appropriate hospital for further evaluation & care. Background: Two labels for one scary syndrome. The first one is from the WHO and the second one is from the CDC for the U.S. The “temporally linked” to COVID is important since no one is sure yet that COVID-19 and this syndrome are cause and effect,...
United States: CDC Health Advisory from the Health Alert Network: https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2020/han00432.asp CDC MIS-C for Parents: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/children/mis-c.html CDC COVID and MIC-C Information for Healthcare Providers: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/pediatric-hcp.html#anchor_1589580133375 Medscape Video & Article on MIS-C in Kids: What Do We Know? https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/930686 Canada: CPSP/PCSP Public Health Alert for Acute Inflammatory Illness in Children…. : https://www.cpsp.cps.ca/uploads/private/CPSP_Public_Health_Alert_Acute_inflammatory_illness_and_COVID-19.pdf CPSP Website for COVID-19 in hospitalized children and non-hospitalized children with chronic co-morbid conditions: https://www.cpsp.cps.ca/surveillance/study-etude/covid-19-in-hospitalized-children-and-non-hospitalized-children-with-chronic-co-morbid-conditions The Provincial Council for Maternal & Child Health (PCMCH) & Kids Health Alliance (KHA) COVID – 19 Information for Healthcare Providers Caring for Children & Youth...
A new syndrome, now named MIS-C, has been identified in multiple countries in the past few weeks which seems to be associated with COVID-19 infection, even if COVID was asymptomatic or unrecognized. It manifests itself as a Kawasaki-like illness and/or as Toxic Shock-Like Syndrome. It needs to be recognized as early as possible, so that monitoring, treatment, and testing can be started early in its course for the best outcomes. That makes it essential for Pre-hospital & Hospital Providers to...
Podcast with IAED - Annals of Emergency Dispatch & Response, hosted by Becca Barrus. Todd Stout, president and founder of FirstWatch, discusses the role of FirstWatch in COVID-19 surveillance, lessons learned from the Ebola virus outbreak, and the importance of emergency dispatchers increasing their resilience.
JEMS Editor Emeritus AJ Heightman interviewed FirstWatch president Todd Stout on COVID-19. Todd shares some history of FirstWatch helping with health surveillance and emerging infectious diseases, ways that FirstWatch customers are using data during this pandemic, the importance of resilience, and our commitment to helping provide helpful and actionable information for all first responders via our health intelligence pages, webinars, and articles.
EMS1 article by Mike Taigman - Leaders from Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service and Snohomish County Fire District detail how they’re monitoring the COVID-19 surge and preparing for the worst-case scenario.
Any time there is a novel virus, regardless of what it is or where it came from, there is a learning curve for virologists, infectious disease doctors, epidemiologists, other health care workers, first responders and the public. This is even more pronounced when it is a global event, since different countries note and report different data points and have different thresholds for including these elements in a report. Those countries with their own robust health systems, especially with epidemiologically-based public...
A new COVID-19 resource page on EMS.gov provides easy to find links to the most relevant and up-to-date information from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NHTSA Office of EMS and other Federal agencies involved in the response to the pandemic. This includes guidance for treating potential COVID-19 patients, information on PPE use and supplies and processes for handling healthcare providers who have been exposed to coronavirus.
Executive Summary: For those Public Safety Agencies reporting an employee’s possible exposure, and expecting notification of a positive COVID-19 disease result from the hospital or public health officer, the expanded Ryan White Act of 2009 update has been published by NIOSH/CDC and will address this issue. Furthermore, emergency response employees covered by the Act have been defined. Full Report: The CDC/NIOSH has updated the Infectious Diseases and Circumstances Relevant to Notification of Emergency Response Employees: Implementation of Sec.2695 of the Ryan White...
FirstWatch Medical Director, Silvia Verdugo Puts COVID-19 in Perspective in JEMS Interview
EMS1 article - Our friend Catherine Counts PhD from Seattle shares data visualization resources to help manage the response to our pandemic.
EMS1 article by Rob Lawrence - Communication, PPE and decontamination strategies highlighted the 4th FirstWatch and Paramedic Chiefs of Canada COVID-19 webinar
This joint webinar of PCC, AIMHI, IAED, NAEMT, CAA, and FirstWatch was the 4th in a series. We were proud to see that over 1,300 people registered for it. With Matt Zavadsky from MedStar moderating, our presenters for Solano County, California were Dr. Bela Matyas from Solano County Public Health, Ted Selby from Solano County EMS, and Jimmy Pierson from Medic Ambulance. They provided incredibly useful and practical information from their ongoing experience providing care for COVID-19 patients quarantined at Travis Air Base. One example of insight shared is how they balanced the needs of the community for EMS coverage with the...
EMS1 article by Mike Taigman - Coronavirus spread in an already busy flu season calls staffing contingency plans and a commitment to hygiene and PPE
The intention of the COVID-19 Process/Policy Template is to provide agencies, medical directors, or others who want to utilize it, an outline/template on which to build an agency-specific policy/protocol to address COVID-19. This includes suggestions for development and/or oversight committees, outside partners and stakeholders, as well as preparation and process for EMS workers who provide best practice care for patients as well as providing for the protection of pre-hospital providers and medical director(s). Its application is totally up to the user. This document...
WSB-TV - Article and Video: Two dozen emergency workers in Washington state are off the job as they are being monitored for possible exposure to the coronavirus. (KIRO7.com)
