Hamilton County Emergency Medical Services (EMS) |
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Hospital Disaster Network
Protocol Sub Committee | |||
In the Greater Cincinnati area, EMS is handled by community Fire Departments. Most of these departments employ a large number of paid part time staff. Historically, these departments had widely varying EMS protocols. This made it very confusing for EMT Basics and EMT Paramedics to remember which protocol they were following on any given day. In the late 1970's the under the auspices of the Academy of Medicine of Cincinnati, several local EMS Medical Directors created a Protocol Committee made up of EMS Medical Directors, EMT Basics, EMT Paramedics, EMS Educators and Fire Chiefs. This committee created a unified pre-hospital protocol for all of the Ohio Greater Cincinnati area. An agreement between the Fire Chiefs Association and the Academy of Medicine has allowed our protocols to be accepted at over 70 departments as of 2014.
Our protocols continue to develop. New protocols are written and old ones are updated and sometimes deleted. The process is a combination of expert opinions, evidence based medicine, and practical street experience. New protocols are suggested to fulfill a need for the pre-hospital providers. Old protocols are modified when new medications or procedures are introduced. Every decision is discussed by the committee and final decision are made by majority vote.
The Protocols are designed to be both a practical guide for the treatment of patients, and also a teaching document to be used to educate EMS personnel. Consequently each protocol is 1-3 pages long, but the whole protocol has a summary sheet that is 2 pages long. The 186 page protocol is separated into sections. The sections are: Administrative; Symptom Based, Cardiac, Medical, Trauma, Pediatric, Procedures; Appendix. The Symptom Based section serves to provide a symptom based approach to patient evaluation. This provides a decision tree, referring to more specific protocols in the other sections where the approach is more diagnosis oriented. For example one of the symptom based protocols is "Shortness of Breath". This protocol refers to the protocols for Asthma, Congestive Heart Failure, pneumothorax and other diagnoses that manifest with shortness of breath.
The protocols are updated once per year. In October a final rough draft is put out to allow pharmacy licenses to be obtained and instruction of EMS personnel to begin on the new modifications. Final corrections are put out in December and the protocols go into effect January 1st. These protocols are put out in PDF format and can be accessed in print form and on mobile devices. The Academy of Medicine visits EMS departments to ensure that the protocols are being followed and the Squads have the equipment and drugs to perform under the protocols. For over 30 years this process has allowed the residents of the Greater Cincinnati area to get uniform high quality care throughout the region. If you would like to see our protocols please go to Southwest Ohio Protocol tab.
Our protocols continue to develop. New protocols are written and old ones are updated and sometimes deleted. The process is a combination of expert opinions, evidence based medicine, and practical street experience. New protocols are suggested to fulfill a need for the pre-hospital providers. Old protocols are modified when new medications or procedures are introduced. Every decision is discussed by the committee and final decision are made by majority vote.
The Protocols are designed to be both a practical guide for the treatment of patients, and also a teaching document to be used to educate EMS personnel. Consequently each protocol is 1-3 pages long, but the whole protocol has a summary sheet that is 2 pages long. The 186 page protocol is separated into sections. The sections are: Administrative; Symptom Based, Cardiac, Medical, Trauma, Pediatric, Procedures; Appendix. The Symptom Based section serves to provide a symptom based approach to patient evaluation. This provides a decision tree, referring to more specific protocols in the other sections where the approach is more diagnosis oriented. For example one of the symptom based protocols is "Shortness of Breath". This protocol refers to the protocols for Asthma, Congestive Heart Failure, pneumothorax and other diagnoses that manifest with shortness of breath.
The protocols are updated once per year. In October a final rough draft is put out to allow pharmacy licenses to be obtained and instruction of EMS personnel to begin on the new modifications. Final corrections are put out in December and the protocols go into effect January 1st. These protocols are put out in PDF format and can be accessed in print form and on mobile devices. The Academy of Medicine visits EMS departments to ensure that the protocols are being followed and the Squads have the equipment and drugs to perform under the protocols. For over 30 years this process has allowed the residents of the Greater Cincinnati area to get uniform high quality care throughout the region. If you would like to see our protocols please go to Southwest Ohio Protocol tab.