Pulsara Blog

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

This platform helps ensure consistent and reliable communication when it matters most

Think about the last 10 conversations you had with someone who wasn’t standing right next to you. There’s a pretty good chance you communicated through text, FaceTime, social media messaging or even a good old-fashioned phone call. It’s highly unlikely you sent them a page, much less a fax.

Today’s communication technology has grown in leaps and bounds. We have confidence that our voicemails are heard and our texts are read, but older methods of communication can leave the sender wondering if their message was received.

When so many millions of people use their smartphones to relay simple information – “Remember to stop at the store to buy milk on the way home” – why would first responders continue to trust older technology to communicate vital information?

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” said Brandon Means, senior vice president of sales at Pulsara. A career paramedic and flight nurse, he was formerly a firm believer in using radios to relay critical patient data.

“I thought our radios worked fine – until they didn’t,” he explained. “They may be working fine on my end, but on the other end, it may sound garbled. There’s a reason we use modern technology in our daily lives. Firefighters, paramedics, nurses and physicians push back and say, ‘No, my pager works fine.’ Well, there’s also a reason they don’t use their radio to call their child riding their bike down the street. It’s just not reliable or consistent.”

The Evolution of “STRAUMA”: Using Innovation and Technology to Improve Trauma and Stroke Patient Care 

Not unlike other trauma centers, one of UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central's top mechanisms of injury is geriatric ground-level falls. As part of their Trauma performance improvement process, they identified an opportunity with relation to this population in which both Trauma and Stroke alerts were required. While they had their Trauma and Stroke alerts dialed in, they realized they still had a problem: their communication systems were not as fast or efficient as they could be when dealing with patients that needed coordinated care from both the Trauma and Stroke teams. They saw an opportunity to streamline alerts and coordination of care for those types of patients.

Presented by the American Trauma Society, with speakers Heather Finch, MSN, RN, CEN, TCRN, Manager of Trauma Services at UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central in Colorado Springs, CO along with moderator Kate Leatherby, Regional Vice President - West at Pulsara, learn how UCHealth turned all of that around with a little bit of innovation and technology. UCHealth Memorial Hospital Central has improved efficiency, eliminated phone calls to multiple people, and created a novel “STRAUMA” alert (Trauma + Stroke) with dual team notification and response for improved patient care and team coordination. 

Webinar Event Details

Date: Thursday, November 11th, 2021

Time: 1:00 PM EDT | 12:00 PM CDT | 11:00 AM MDT | 10:00 AM PDT

Cost: FREE

Webinar Host: American Trauma Society

The Future-Proof Health System: How Dismantling Communication Siloes Can Support Better Care Delivery Today and Tomorrow

In the largest pandemic of our lifetime, learn how healthcare leaders are using a unified communication and logistics platform to not only manage the COVID-19 crisis, but also lay the foundation for a new reality in healthcare—including the dismantling of communication silos between disparate care teams, single source of truth patient care coordination, and systems of care that scale.

Presented by Joey Branton, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at Pulsara, this presentation will provide tangible takeaways that you can apply to your own organization.

BOZEMAN, Mont., May 19, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth and communication platform that connects healthcare teams across organizations, announced today that the company was named a 2021 SIIA CODiE Award finalist in the category of Best Business Technology Pivot. Finalists represent the best products, technologies, and services in software, information, and business technology.

Acknowledged as the premier awards program for the software and information industries for over 35 years, the SIIA CODiE Awards are produced by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the principal trade association for the software, education, media, and digital content industries. Pulsara was honored as one of 153 finalists across the 43 business technology categories, including two categories in response to COVID-19.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Cynthia Bradford Lencioni for writing today's blog post. You can connect with her on LinkedIn. 

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Imagine that you are a paramedic in a rural region who has been summoned by 999 dispatch to the scene of a home accident. All you know is that there is a patient with suspected burns who is counting on you to save his life. When you arrive on scene, you quickly determine that your patient is a young child of about eight years of age with third-degree burns on at least 20% of his body, including his upper torso and head. He is deteriorating rapidly into shock. Given the extent of his injuries, you realize that per protocol, he needs immediate transport to a burn centre. As your partner begins to start an IV, you radio the regional command centre to provide the patient’s status and urgently request critical-care transport via air ambulance. Precious seconds turn into minutes as you stand by waiting for a reply from the command centre with an ETA for the air ambulance team... 

Looking for an excuse to go to Dubai?

Or perhaps you've been wanting to learn more about Middle East healthcare and would love the opportunity to network with global healthcare leaders and influencers (like Pulsara!) — facilitating the continuous advancement of healthcare in the region and the world?

Then look no further than the 2021 Arab Health Conference this June 21-24! In addition to opportunities like exclusive international networking and exposure to the newest state-of-the-art medical technologies and processes, you'll also not want to miss Dr. James Woodson, MD, FACEP, Founder and CEO of Pulsara, as he presents the session 'Enabling Networked Communication: How Innovations in Mobile Technology Can Be Leveraged for Better Quality of Care.' 

Read on to learn more!

In the early 2000s, if you had told someone you could Facetime someone across the world, they would have asked what "Facetime" is. Fast forward to early 2015’s declaration by TechCrunch contributor Tom Goodwin: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.”

Software is allowing for the decentralization of goods and services and has created an environment that can connect the masses. "Decentralization" refers to the transfer of control and decision-making from one centralized entity to a distributed network. It means your network has become more connected, enabling faster response times. 

The same decentralization is happening with healthcare.

Breakdowns and bottlenecks in healthcare communication systems frequently cause a myriad of delays in patient care. Legacy systems like radios, pagers, fax machines, and multiple phone calls connect clinicians but aren't always able to efficiently get the right message to the right person at the right time. Combined with the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, it's clear that our current systems of communication need to be reimagined. Healthcare officials must begin to think differently. 

Your acute care, collaboration, and coordination solution needs to be scalable and flexible, enabling you to adapt quickly to the dynamic needs of patients and clinicians—and span across all organizations involved in patient care. By replacing legacy systems with one solution that covers the entire care continuum, health providers can achieve reduced treatment times, conserve resources, and improve the lives of both patients and caregivers.

When: The evening of April 27 in the USA; 11 AM on the 28th in New South Wales, Australia

Cost: FREE

Registration: Click here to register

Read on for further details!

Editor's Note: The following blog is based on the webinar Plug the Hole! Leveraging Telehealth to Stop System Leakage, sponsored by Pulsara in collaboration with Becker's Healthcare. Their complete list of top takeaways can be found here.

With many health systems still dealing with financial stress from the COVID-19 pandemic, it is more important than ever to ensure money and market share are not lost to competitors. One way to reduce unnecessary patient transfers and revenue leaving the organization is by using a telehealth and communication platform to connect facilities.

That's what Forrest Winslow, RN, BSED, NRP, Northeast Regional Sales Manager for Pulsara, discussed during a March 23 workshop at the Becker's Healthcare Telehealth Virtual Forum. 

View the full webinar below or read on for the top takeaways you won't want to miss.  

Two years ago my family experienced an unexpected medical event. Our mom had a heart attack at only 62. 

I missed a call at work and checked my voicemail. My mom’s best friend called to say that my mom was having a heart attack and that she had brought her to the hospital. 

My mom had initially visited a local Urgent Care because she thought she had something stuck in her throat. After examination, the clinician ordered an ECG and immediately said that something looked wrong and that she needed to get the emergency room right away.

With each new phase of the pandemic comes a new set of challenges, and each new need is significant. From COVID testing and new treatment protocols to contact tracing and mass vaccinations, we must concurrently address all these challenges before the nation can begin returning to a renewed sense of normalcy. Modernizing and mobilizing the tools our nation’s first responders – and those who support them – use is now imperative, as we combat the spread of COVID-19.

On Thursday, April 8, from 11:30 am - 12:30 pm MDT, join Pulsara's Vice President of National Accounts, Corey Ricketson, for the session "FirstNet: Tracing and Collaborative Care Coordination." In this session, Corey will discuss how Pulsara's healthcare communications platform is being used by emergency medical personnel to unite distributed teams, enable scalable networked communication, and coordinate patient movement across the continuum of patient care.

Click Here to Register for Free

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on EMS1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Sarah Calams of EMS1 BrandFocus.

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In the past, the traditional way of thinking as a paramedic was often this: Get the patient in the rig and drive to the hospital as soon as possible to get the patient the care they need.

But what if the patient wasn’t being transported to the right facility?

Imagine: a paramedic recognizes on scene that they are treating a stroke victim. Their first thought is to get the patient to a hospital as quickly as possible. But what if the receiving hospital isn’t equipped or staffed appropriately to treat the patient?

Recently, Joey Branton, Pulsara's Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, had the opportunity to sit down with Brian Zimmerman of the Becker’s Healthcare Podcast for a chat about "How Collaborative Mobile Communication Solutions are Transforming Healthcare Delivery." During the podcast, Joey and Brian discuss collaborative mobile communication solutions, as well as how these solutions can overlay existing healthcare tools and save hospitals money. 

Listen to the full podcast in the video below, or read on for their full discussion. 

When COVID-19 spread globally last March, New Zealand reacted quickly. In fact, their shut down was so effective that they were able to have a much shorter period of quarantine than most other countries. They quickly mobilized technology to help pivot and shift toward virtual appointments, utilizing telehealth to help manage patients’ needs.

Though brief, this period still has New Zealand experts looking to the future of health—a future which might just lie in the more strategic use of infrastructure and technology.

Join Pulsara Regional Sales Manager, Northeast, Forrest Winslow, BSED, RN, NRP on Tuesday, March 23 at 1:15 pm CT for the session 'Plug the Hole! Leveraging Telehealth to Stop System Leakage' during Becker's Telehealth Virtual Forum. In this session, Forrest will take you on a journey from EMS to the ED and then to a hub-to-spoke scenario. You’ll see firsthand how these different organizations leveraged a telehealth platform to identify where system leakage was coming from, how they created automatic referral patterns to mitigate patient transfers, and ultimately increased ROI and patient loyalty.

Last month, Ambulance Tasmania was rocked by the news that a major data breach exposed over two months of records of patients’ sensitive data.

On January 8th, the personal details of every patient who called an ambulance between November 2020 and mid-January 2021 were discovered online. The website’s administrator posted live updates every time paramedics were dispatched, until the webpage was shut down in mid-January. Sensitive health information exposed on the website included patients’ personal details, gender, age, condition, HIV status, and even the address of the incident. Tasmanian officials expressed concern, outrage, and vows to get to the bottom of the matter.

Where did the breach come from?

Pagers.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on EMS1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Marianne Meyers, BS, for EMS1 BrandFocus. 

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Preparation, vigilance and taking care of your mental health will be key strategies as we move forward

As 2021 begins, COVID-19 vaccines have recently been approved, and it appears that the beginning of the pandemic’s end is in sight. That said, we are still experiencing large spikes throughout the country, and hospitals and EMS systems are under immense strain.

We aren’t quite on the other side, but we can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Here are 10 things we’ve learned from the pandemic that can help improve other areas of EMS response:

In time-sensitive emergencies, time is tissue. Every minute makes the difference in your patient's outcome, for better or worse. 

That's why UCHealth and AMR - Colorado Springs / El Paso County partnered with Pulsara, a healthcare communication and telehealth platform, to save time when patient outcomes are on the line. Pulsara creates a secure, unified patient channel—replaces multiple phone calls, radio reports, faxes, and pagers—and allows care teams to communicate efficiently and effectively when treating patients.

In this live-action retelling of a true story, watch how AMR and UCHealth use Pulsara to streamline and speed their communication processes throughout the patient's journey, making sure that every member of the care team is in the know, when they need to know—from dispatch answering the 911 call, to the hospital staff closing the case after the patient’s treatment is complete.