Quality Systems in Rescue Services

[SteelMaiden]

As a part of my personal leadership development goals, I am nearing the end of my EMT-MR step in EMT-I or Paramedic certification...still have not really decided how far I am going with this. This has been something I've wanted to do for a long time but was unable to commit to before because our children were so young. This year, I was offered the chance to certify through and for my employer who is building an on-site EMT group. Needless to say, that's the way to go, the boss foots the bill and I get to do something I've always felt drawn to.

Anyway, to make a long story short(er), the town I live in (or almost live in) needs volunteers badly so I told them that I would sign up. Here's the catch, Abuse of the Emergency Medical Systems runs rampant in this area. A paramedic from the next county over was telling me about a call last week that was paged out as chest pains and difficulty breathing, when the squad got there, it was a fingernail broken down to the quick. My instructor tells about the "chest pains and difficulty breathing" run they made where the guy jumps out of the ambulance when they get to the hospital and says "thanks for the ride" and starts walking toward downtown. These are not isolated incidents folks, absolutely true and quite frequent.

My question to you is, in your state, are these things allowed to happen? I am a transplant, in my native state these people would be behind bars right now for wreckless endangerment and misuse of emergency services.

Does anyone have or know where I can find information on how to set up policies for a rescue squad. Folks here just have not joined the rest of us in the 21st century, they are still back in the dark ages when it comes to management systems of any kind. It's not that the people on the squad don't want to change, they just don't know what a good system looks like or where to start.

Any help you could give me would be appreciated, as this is truly a new venture in my life and I really think that some organization is called for and I'm one of those type folks that always look for ways to change things for the better, especially when there is so much room for improvement.

[Randy]

I know where you're coming from. 29 years ago I started work for ------------ Arkansas PD. It was the same there. Everybody was used to cousin Billy-Bob being the Chief, mayor or whatever, so they literally got away with murder. A few of us new, outsider types started tossing their a---s in the jug and things changed. We were educated, professional, and didn't owe any favors.

I suggest you do a YAHOO or GOOGLE type of search. Research what some of the metro areas of NC have done.

You also failed to say whether or not service was free to users, if it was subscriptive, or a billed type of operation. If you get public funds the government body should be made aware of abuses and asked to take some type of legislative action to reduce them. (We had false burglary and robbery alarms all the time until the city council started inposing fees for them. The fire department had the same thing for false fire alarms..oh yeah they also did the ambulance for the city after we established it--I was an EMT-2A I think).

Good luck

[SteelMaiden]

Thanks!

Yep, mostly the cousin jim-bob thing goin on. If you call in a complaint, the inspectors and such call up and say "uh, hey there cousin Jim-Bob, we'll be there 2 days from now, so get your books in order"

I will continue to work on the i-net searches, I also have some contacts up north who are on squads and will help me out. As for money...strictly volunteer, the squad gets squat and the county has a hissy fit everytime someone says "let's start charging". I still think that if we started charging a nominal donation fee, we'd get rid of a lot of the stuff you normally flush.

Ah well, just another day south of the M-D line.