What do EMS and hospital care teams have in common with NASCAR drivers?
Quite a bit, as it turns out. The success or failure of both hinges on one thing: time.
It might surprise even dedicated fans to learn that all of the cars on the track are limited to the same top speed and horsepower range. With this being the case, how can it be that there is such a large disparity between first and last place?
The answer: The race is won and lost during the pit stop.
Picture this:
About 12 hours into your 24-hour shift, you and your partner are finally sitting down to your first real meal of the day.
Just as the first bite of warm food hits your lips, the tones drop—an all-too-familiar scenario in the world of first responders.
You’re dispatched to a 51-year-old male reporting chest pain. You walk in the door to a very distraught family, gathered around a man clutching his chest. He is pale and sweating profusely. You meet your partner’s eyes, and you know you’re both thinking the same thing. You quickly obtain the ECG and your suspicions are confirmed: tombstones in leads II, III, and AVF.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Alyana Samai is the Director of Stroke Services at West Jefferson Medical Center in Marrero, Louisiana. Aly has been a champion user of Pulsara since 2016, and has led her teams to successfully decrease door to needle times by streamlining and improving communication when it matters most.
Dear Aly,
We are new clients and implementing Pulsara at our facility, but many of our nurses are concerned that this is going to be "double documentation," more than communication. How can we help them understand that Pulsara can streamline the process, reduce communication frustrations, and not double up on tasks?
Sincerely,
Prepared for Pulsara
“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” – William James
Most employees are asked to self-manage to a significant degree, to use their intelligence and experience to direct their work to accomplish important organizational purposes. This is how many of today’s workers give value to what they are doing by improvising, problem solving and innovating under stressful conditions to meet customers’ and business needs. [1]
You’ve probably heard it said before that failure is inevitable, and of course that is true. No one of us is immune to failure. But, as much as failure is a normal part of everyday life, it’s important to know that you don’t have to stay there. Failure is normal, but being stuck in failure shouldn’t be. The following are culprits I’ve found to be shared among people or institutions who feel stuck in a pattern of failure.
We live in a world of constant stimulation, of more is more, and, as a result, of multitasking. Most of us think we’re pretty good at multitasking, and greatly overestimate our proficiency at doing two or more tasks at once. I think I’m better at multitasking than most, but I guarantee that if my wife reads this she will bust a gut laughing … I can’t even listen to her with the TV on. I’m not alone here, am I?
Which is more important?
What you do.
How you do it.
OR ...
Why you do it?
In medicine, what we do makes a difference. The world of evidence-based medicine dictates our practice. When we have certain outcomes we’re not happy with, those outcomes prompt changes in protocol. Those protocol changes are implemented, and we then measure the difference.
Somewhere, sometime, a consultant met with your hospital leadership team and began the process of strategic planning. From there, you developed a vision, mission, purpose, core values and all that jazz. Unfortunately, for most hospitals, this is just rhetoric and jargon. I’m sure that at some level the leaders within the hospital make decisions based off of these “values,” but it seldom permeates in a meaningful way to the people who are providing care for patients.
"A nurse should have fewer patients in order to provide the best possible care, and that care should not [include] caring for the EHR ... we need better technolgy to bind us together."
A recent survey conducted by Infinite Convergence Solutions shows that the majority of healthcare institutions in the United States are using messaging apps and services that do not meet enterprise-grade standards for HIPAA and security regulations.
According to FierceMobileHealthcare, Infinite Convergence's CEO, Anurag Lal, said "CIOs and IT leaders in healthcare institutions need to make available an official ... messaging platform to their employees which also allows them to implement administrative, physical and technical safeguards that HIPAA requires."
If your wife wanted you to pick up some milk on your way home, would she send you a fax or a page? Would she have her assistant call your answering service who will then let you know that you need to call her to tell you she needs some milk?
Sounds ridiculous, right? In reality, your wife will simply text you. In 2 seconds, she can relay the simple message to you, you get it in real time, and can quickly type back "got it." It's simple, fast, effective communication that just makes sense.
Unfortunately, when lives are on the line, we are still doing communications in the backwards, roundabout, convoluted way described in the first paragraph of this post and by Pulsara's CEO Dr. James Woodson in The Disaster Podcast's latest episode.
Here at Pulsara, we've been saying it all along: The future of healthcare is in mobile technology. But you don't have to take our word for it!
According to a recent article published on Cloud Tweaks, mobile technology provides "faster communication and better collaboration" so that "clinicians can spend much less time handling medical devices and more time administering care to their patients."
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article was originally pubilshed on EMS1.com. EMS1 serves as the largest site for paramedics and EMTs to find expert industry-relevant content.
With EMS and hospital professionals looking at different clocks—different timelines—for the same patient, it’s surprising that there aren’t more issues. And that’s not getting into other related information that is transmitted along the line: patient records, ECGs, and other miscellaneous documents. When every second counts, that type of miscommunication can be dangerous, or even fatal.
The future of healthcare is in bridging these gaps and creating a single protocol that encompasses the entire process from first contact to definitive treatment and includes all the stakeholders involved. The idea itself is a simple communication protocol that:
Lions, Tiger and Bears... OH MY!
Do you ever feel like Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz? Only your chant is "Guidelines, Influence, Data... OH MY!"
These three words describe the life of a Stroke Coordinator.
It’s lonely at the top.
Yes, it was a long way from the top of the corporate ladder, but there are two things I know for sure: 1) I was in a leadership position and 2) I was VERY lonely.
But here’s a secret:
If you are in a leadership position and are alone, you’re doing it wrong.
Yup, I said it. If you are in a leadership position and are lonely, you’re missing the point.
The good news is that you’re not the only one. In fact, throughout my travels with Pulsara, I connect daily with fellow coordinators – from large and small health systems – that feel the exact same way. I get it. It’s a tough position. In fact, as a coordinator, the very essence of your job is influencing people in areas where you have no authority.
“The only people who like change are wet babies.”
-- Mark Twain
How true is that statement? If you’re looking for an enemy, just go and change something. I wish it were different, but it’s one of life’s inevitable truths. Many of us live under the false pretense that one day all things will stay the same and we’ll find ourselves sipping umbrella drinks on the beach. This is true; one day you’ll find that change is not longer relevant, but it requires that you die first.
We all know that “time is tissue” for our stroke patients. We now have four studies (Mr Clean, Escape, Extend-1A, and Swift-Prime) showing the tremendous benefits of endovascular therapy for patients with large vessel occlusion (LVO).
