Tamingthesru
Ebola Preparations: The Greater Cincinnati Area EMS Provider Perspective
As we are all coming to realize, there is a tremendous amount of information to digest when it comes to preparations for potential Ebola cases...
I sat down with Dr. Don Locasto and Dr. Dustin Calhoun to discuss their work with the PHEMAC committee. PHEMAC stands for "Public Health EMS Medical Directors Advisory Council." They exist specifically to deal with situations like this within our region.
PHEMAC recently released an update to all regional EMS providers. The goal of the update was to distill down all of the information out there into a useable form for our local teams. The text is available below.
Our discussion summarizes these initial recommendations, as well as makes suggestions for staying up-to-date as more recommendations are released. You can listen to the podcast here, or by subscribing to us through iTunes.
Grand Rounds Recap - 10/15/2014
Prescription Drug and Opiate Epidemic with Dr. Shawn Ryan
The US is the #1 country in the world for opiate prescription drug utilization
- The numbers quoted are likely greatly underestimated due to inconsistent documentation
- Death rate from opiate pain medication (OPM) has quadrupled in the time span of 1999-2010
- Death rate in 2012 was 5.6 per 100,000
- In 2011, 44 people per day died from opiate overdose in the US
- In 2007, unintentional opiate overdose became the leading cause of death in the US for young population
- OH death rate has grown faster than the national rate. At this time 5 people/day die in OH from opiate overdose
Bougie-Assisted Chest Tube
Indications
- Obesity
- Subcutaneous Emphysema
- Anticipated difficult placement
Benefits
- Possible faster time to definitive chest tube placement
- Helps ensure proper posterior / superior positioning
- Minimizes number of violations of the parietal pleura