Oldham County EMS welcomes keith smith

Oldham County EMS is proud to announce Keith Smith will be assuming the position of Deputy Director of Operations effective January 5, 2010, filling the vacancy created by the resignation of Mike Heilman in September of this year.

Keith began his career with Middletown Fire Department in Jefferson County, Kentucky in 1981. He later joined the Kentucky Air National Guard where he advanced through the ranks to be the youngest Assistant Fire Chief in unit history. During his 20-year military career he supervised over 250 people while deployed during Operation Noble Eagle, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Upon moving to Oldham County in 1995, he joined the South Oldham Fire Department, where he volunteered for 6 years. For the past 11 years Keith Smith has been a full-time employee of the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services as a Regional EMS advisor and inspector. In this role, he routinely advised ambulance services across the Commonwealth of Kentucky as to State required compliance mandates. Additionally, he assisted ambulance services through the process of conversion from basic to advanced life support systems along with meeting local elected officials to ensure EMS operational knowledge.

Keith Smith will begin transitioning into his new role on a part-time basis November 30, 2009, and full-time on January 5, 2010. He currently resides in Buckner, Kentucky with his wife, Tammy, and two sons, Tyler and Justin. He is an active member of the community, participating in the PTA, school athletics, and the Boy Scouts of America. He has an Associates of Applied Science Degree and is currently pursuing his Bachelor’s Degree at the University of Louisville.

Thanks to all The Survivors!

We'd like to thank all the breast cancer survivors that stopped by the station, flagged us down along the roadside or joined us at the Awareness Walks in order to sign the ambulances. We hope their signatures serve as a reminder to anyone diagnosed with breast cancer that the diagnosis isn't a death sentence. In fact, at one of the walks we met an 85 year old lady who was a 25 year survivor.

H1N1 and respiratory epidemics training video

With all of the confusion and concern regarding the H1N1 virus, our training director, Major Todd Early created a very thorough, informative, and up-to- date presentation on the subject. You can watch the 49 minute video here.

Since it's such an important topic, we wanted to make sure we get the message out to as many EMS personnel and first responders as possible.

Please feel free to send this link to any agency that you feel might benefit from the presentation. The video is located at http://www.oldhamcountyems.com/h1n1.shtml.

OCEMS becomes first Kentucky Ambulance Service to become a Drug Free Workplace

A new Kentucky League of Cities program is giving municipalities the lead in proactive substance abuse education and intervention for employees. Oldham County Emergency Medical Services became the first ambulance service in the state of Kentucky to receive this certification.

The facts speak for themselves.

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Mental Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, more than 70 percent of all substance abusers are employed.

With the support of the Kentucky League of Cities (KLC) in 2007, the Kentucky General Assembly enacted HB-267, better known as the Kentucky Drug Free Workplace Program. As a result of rampant drug use and abuse throughout Kentucky, this legislation was designed to encourage employers to implement a program to identify drug and alcohol use in the workplace, educate workers on the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse and to assist in treatment if drug use is detected.

OCEMS is now certified through the Kentucky Department of Workers' Claims as 'drug free.' Although the program is voluntary for employers, the benefits certification improve the quality of work life for employees, reduces workplace accidents, tardiness and absenteeism, and improves the quality of life and the general safety of all citizens throughout the community.

To find out more about the Drug Free Workplace program, visit the Kentucky Labor Cabinet's web site.

iStan is Here!

The department is now the proud owner of iStan, a sophisticated cutting-edge medical simulator designed specifically for EMS and emergency room personnel. Made possible through the generosity of the Baptist Hospital Northeast, The Baptist Foundation, and the Hospital Emergency Response Association, the iStan simulator will allow the service to add realistic scenarios to our training. At this point we are the only EMS service in the state to have such a state-of-the-art training aid.

It's very amazing technology...a sophisticated blend between a Resusci Annie and a robot. The simulator is controlled wirelessly by a computer and includes on-board fluid, pneumatic and electrical systems. It can cry, drool, bleed, seize, and breath at the click of a mouse. You can read more about iStan here.

The technology behind the simulators was originally developed for the U.S. Army to help train their doctors, nurses and medics. Their studies indicated that exposure to realistic and intense human life or death scenarios successfully provided thousands of medics with critical thinking and life-saving skills, confidence and the ability to put learned theories to use before exposure to real life situations. We intend to do the same at Oldham County EMS.

Saving heart muscle just became easier

Blocked arteries deprive the heart muscle of much-needed oxygen. That's the basic concept of a heart attack. If the blockage persists, the heart muscle will die. Preferred treatment is the placement of a stint or balloon angioplasty which effectively reopens the vessel—a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). In the past, when a person would present to the ER with a heart attack, it could sometimes take an hour or two to confirm the heart attack and assemble the cardiac catheterization team—depleting precious minutes and precious heart muscle as well. Now, there's a better way.

Using specially-designed cellular modems generously provided by Norton Hospital, paramedics from Oldham County EMS can now transmit the EKGs directly to the awaiting hospital, allowing the ER time to assemble the PCI team and prepare for the patient. The medics can then bypass the ER and take the patient to a waiting cardiac catheterization table where treatment can begin immediately. The gold standard adopted by the American Heart Association is treatment within 90 minutes of hitting the door of the hospital (referred to as Door-to-Balloon time). With advanced notification, Oldham County EMS can greatly reduce even the gold standard. The end result is that we can help more people survive a heart attack that would have been fatal in the past.

Oldham County EMS introduces new protocols

As of July 1, 2009, Oldham County EMS will be operating off a new, more progressive set of protocols than ever before. The new protocols include EZ-IO-drills, Drug Assisted Intubation (DAI) and Rapid Sequence Intubation (RSI) medications, and advanced pain management. BLS members will be able to administer epinephrine for anaphylaxis, provide Albuterol treatments for asthmatic patients, and give aspirin for initial treatment of heart attacks.

Also, as noted above, the medics will be able to transmit 12-lead EKGs directly to hospitals, thus expediting the activation of cardiac catheterization labs. In doing so, valuable time — and heart muscle — can be saved.

Expanded training section

While our primary training goal is to provide high-quality classroom instruction, we're in the process of moving those trainings to DVDs and the web as well. This not only makes the training more accessible to our employees, but the general public as well.

We're also in the final stages of designing what we're calling Life Trainings. While medical training is important, factors outside of the workplace also effect the lives of our employees. The topic for these classes will include nutrition, budgeting/home finance and conflict resolution to name but a few.