April 20, 2024

EMS ambulatory sees improvement in response time

By DUSTY DAVIS

Ryan Burwell, EMS manager at Greater Regional Health, controls the hospital's LUCAS CPR machine during a demonstration on a medical mannequin. The CPR machine will allow first responders to have their hands free to care for a patient in other ways while the machine does CPR compressions.

Emergency Medical Services have made strides in making their response time more rapid, according to EMS manager Ryan Burwell at Greater Regional Health. Still, time is of the essence for ambulatory services between an emergency call and response.

“We always like to tell everyone, by the time you dial 911, it goes to dispatch, and dispatch then pages us. If we’re in the ER, we can get out in the truck and get rolling rather quickly, you’re looking at two or three minutes then,” Burwell said.

EMS have made the effort to respond faster to emergency calls by streamlining their operations. Burwell said there were two crews working 12-hour shifts in a 24-hour timeframe.

“Now we have a minimum of three paramedics in-house on 24 hours and one EMT,” he said. “So, with the 24-hour shifts, our response times have greatly improved when there’s two calls at the same time.”

Burwell added this improvement has kept crew members working in rural areas when they may have once preferred moving to Omaha or Des Moines.

Burwell said Union County is also fortunate to not have a shortage of first responders.

“When you read in the paper and the news when they’re talking about shortages of volunteers and EMS and stuff, it is very true, but we’re very lucky in this county, I feel, so someone’s going to show up when you call 911.”

EMS crews often get their certifications in Omaha or Des Moines. Burwell’s mother was an ER nurse in Clarinda when he was 20, and after doing a ride along with her and her crew, Burwell said he wanted to pursue being a paramedic as a career.

“My EMT class was through Iowa Western and then I did an intermediate class through Creighton and I got my paramedic’s degree,” he said.

Burwell said the average amount of ambulance calls is five per 24-hour shift and 1,600 calls per year.

“That’s everything between 911′s, transfers, and we also do transfers not only from our hospital but we will go to Corning and help them,” he said. “They actually came and helped us last week, everyone’s pretty good at helping each other out in the area.”

Burwell said there can be major differences in the types of calls they receive.

“Of course, shortness of breath, strokes, heart attacks, car wrecks, any pretty significant falls, traumas, those are the emergent ones.”

However, EMS will also respond to 911 calls that don’t reach that level of crisis.

“A lot of times out in the public, if someone falls, they’ll hurry up and call 911 and a lot of times when we get there, we just help them up, so that wouldn’t be quite as emergent,” Burwell said. “I always like to joke around and say those are the calls that I kind of enjoy because you get to go out, you get to help people and no one’s hurt.”

Burwell said people shouldn’t be hesitant to call 911 even if the emergency turns out not to be as great as it initially appeared.

“If you’re not sure, just call us,” he said. “It’s always better to call then not need us than need us and the ambulance and law enforcement and the fire department are five minutes behind, we’re always behind the eight ball anyway.”