Hannah Ostrem

On March 2, 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released a report detailing trends in the utilization of Emergency Department services between 2009 and 2018. Between 2009 and 2016, ED rates slowly but steadily increased. During the COVID-19 pandemic, ED volume rates have trended down, but the number of people needing care has not changed. And during COVID surges, open beds have become a precious commodity. 

The increased demand on medical providers' time and resources has been met with a particularly intriguing solution involving a newer model of care: community paramedicine.

It's difficult to have a healthy team dynamic without good communication. 

But in healthcare, a positive team dynamic isn't the only thing depending on good communication. One retrospective analysis found that communication and teamwork issues were among the most frequent contributing factors to incident reports and adverse events. In fact, one report in the analysis showed that 30% of all surgical procedures included a communication failure. On top of that, 36% of those failures caused delays in treatment time, errors in the surgical procedure, or tension among the care team.

For patients, that's a significant impact on the quality of their care experience. Delays and errors can mean complications, a longer stay in the hospital, and an even longer road to healing. 

Pulsara’s COVID-19 package enables networked communication (including HIPAA-compliant live video and messaging) across organizations at no charge.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 15, 2020

Bozeman, Mont — Pulsara announced today that they have released a COVID-19 management package available to all EMS and healthcare organizations in the United States for free.

“With confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019 cases on the rise in the U.S., we know that many EMS and healthcare organizations are rapidly preparing for the management of this crisis within their communities,” said Pulsara Founder and CEO, Dr. James Woodson. “Inter-organization communication has never been more important than it is right now. In this time of need, we are fortunate to be able to serve.”

Pulsara's free communication package includes live video streaming and enables networked communication for any healthcare organization.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 12, 2020

Bozeman, Mont — The healthcare communication platform company, Pulsara, announced today that they are expanding their Pulsara ONE package, and that it will now be offered at no cost to all referring facilities. Effective immediately, Pulsara ONE enables live streaming video, consult, and transfer capabilities for any referring facilities, including EMS organizations, hospitals, nursing homes, physician offices, rehab centers, and urgent care facilities among others. The expansion of Pulsara ONE is an effort to further realize the company’s mission to unite and empower people to improve health by simplifying care coordination.

Saint Mary’s Regional Health System is a Joint-Commission-accredited Level III Trauma Center, located in Russellville, Arkansas. The 170-bed hospital has delivered care to the River Valley community for the past 90 years, and alongside Pope County EMS since 1967.

Saint Mary’s and Pope County EMS have a long-standing relationship built on a shared value of putting patients first. As the only hospital and EMS agency serving their region, they together perform emergency response for 28,000 patients annually.

At Pulsara, our purpose is to improve the lives of patients and caregivers through innovative communication. For us, that means delivering a platform that standardizes communication for ALL teams involved in patient care — including prehospital providers like EMS, urgent care centers, nursing homes, critical access hospitals, and other referring facilities, teams within the destination hospital, and teams who need to communicate between healthcare organizations in cases that require a consult or transfer.

Last month, Pulsara was featured in a follow-up piece to an article published in the Longview News Journal, which described the innovative way healthcare teams in Longview, Texas are using the platform to benefit mental health patients. This new use case reduces hurdles these patients must overcome in order to see a mental health professional in times of crisis:

In emergency conditions like STEMI, patient outcomes depend heavily on the time between onset of symptoms to definitive treatment. As such, clinicians should make every effort possible to reduce any delays during that period. 

To that aim, an algorithm developed by the American Heart Association, and published earlier this week, establishes a standardized process which encourages pre-activation of the ED and determines when direct-to-cath-lab protocols are appropriate.

Overlake Medical Center is a Certified Joint Commission Thrombectomy-Capable Stroke Center in the Seattle, WA area. Recently, they posted an article detailing an inspiring stroke survival story. The article also discusses the Overlake's recent efforts to improve treatment times for stroke patients: 

"Overlake’s stroke program has received numerous awards over the years, reflecting its commitment to providing patients the latest technologies and innovative treatments. Staying true to that commitment, the hospital recently implemented use of a smartphone app called Pulsara that mobilizes the stroke care team with a single tap.

Dr. Brijesh Mehta is a Neurointerventional Surgeon, currently practicing at Memorial Neuroscience Center in Hollywood, FL. He recently gave a TED talk describing how his teams have leveraged new research, technology, and data to improve stroke care and give patients better outcomes. 

In the talk, Dr. Mehta describes how large vessel occlusion stroke (LVO) is "like a wildfire in the brain." He also says there used to be little we could do to stop the devastating effects, but now, thanks to new technologies and procedures such as thrombectomy, patients are regaining functionality and leaving the hospital much sooner than they had in the past.

The traditional role of paramedics has long been responding to emergencies, racing against time to provide critical care in moments of crisis. However, as our understanding of healthcare evolves, so have the roles and responsibilities of some paramedics.

Community paramedicine expands the role of paramedics beyond emergency response and into the realm of providing proactive, preventive, and holistic care for their communities. Community paramedics may conduct home visits, perform health assessments, provide health education, assist with medication management, conduct wellness checks, and facilitate connections to physicians, social services, and other community resources.

Earlier this week, Flight Paramedic, Kris Kaull and Community Paramedicine Advisor, Anne Montera, MHL, BSN, RN, discussed the increasingly important topic of Community Paramedicine (CP) in a webinar hosted by EMS1.

Specifically, they discussed WHY CP programs are an initiative worth considering, case studies that explained some of the benefits patients and communities have reaped from implementation of such a program, barriers that must be overcome when implementing a CP program, and next steps for those interested in Community Paramedicine.

Community Paramedicine (CP) programs can reduce the number of patients who are transported to the ED, thereby reducing the burden on both transport ambulances and ED staff, while simultaneously improving the patient experience by reducing wait times.

As our processes and equipment in EMS continue to evolve, they empower first responders to provide better care for patients. But in order to provide the BEST care, our communication technologies must also evolve and keep pace. 

If you’ve ever felt the frustration of having to repeat the radio report for the umpteenth time, or worse, watched harm reach your patient because of a simple miscommunication, picture this instead:

When our care teams are all on the same page, communication is seamless, and treatment times are reduced, ultimately improving quality of care. How you can leverage the Pulsara communication platform to connect your care teams—whether in your organization or dispersed across many organizations?

Miami Valley Hospital, part of Premier Health, was recently featured on the news for their implementation of both the RAPID stroke imaging platform and Pulsara's communication platform. 

"When patients come in to the hospital after having a stroke, there's a lot of information that needs to get collected, and a lot of people are part of the team that collects that information," said Dr. John Terry, Director of Inpatient Stroke Care at Premier Health. "Pulsara allows all those people to be able to communicate and know what everyone else is doing at the same time." Dr. Terry says that that transparency and ease of communication has changed the hospital's stroke treatment protocols in a "very beneficial way."

Pulsara is a communication platform that connects teams across organizations. Want to see how it works? While the demo video below focuses on a STEMI case started by EMS, STEMI is only one of the many conditions your teams can use Pulsara for. Additionally, care teams can start a case on Pulsara in the ED for walk in patients, from anywhere else in the facility for inpatients, and can use the platform to manage interfacility transfers.