There is plenty of information about COVID-19 available for anyone who searches and clicks on a computer or turns on a TV or radio to catch up on the news. As more is learned about the disease, more info is written and released in an effort to help advance the ability to recognize, identify, track, treat and prevent COVID, so sometimes, as more insight is gained, the information changes. In the beginning, a lot of it was because there just...
As a popular educator and author for several decades, Mike has focused on helping folks in emergency medical services take better care of themselves so they can take better care of their patients and communities. In this podcast, Mike shares strategies and discusses his new book Super Charge Your Stress Management in the Age of COVID-19.
Executive Summary: On 6/1/20, the WHO announced a new outbreak of Ebola in the Northwestern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the same area that had a short outbreak in May 2018. WHO Responders & partners are already there and have done sampling & testing; more responders and supplies are on their way, including vaccine. In this new outbreak, there are 9 cases, 5 of which have been fatal, and one healthcare workers infected. This outbreak is worrisome...
Dear Colleague There has never been a more important time to draw on real world experience to improve pediatric disaster readiness. You are invited to participate in a short survey on pediatric disaster education. This less than 20 minute survey is being conducted by the Eastern Great Lakes Pediatric Consortium for Disaster Response as part of the ASPR National Bioterrorism Hospital Preparedness Program #1U3REP190615-01-00. Your responses will identify gaps in pediatric disaster education and training and will serve to inform future pediatric...
Inside EMS Podcast featured on EMS1 - On this podcast, co-hosts Chris Cebollero and Kelly Grayson are joined by EMS guru and EMS1 columnist Mike Taigman. During the pandemic, stress levels have been on the rise, along with frustration and anger, and Taigman shares ways to handle and reduce those emotions.
According to the American Heart Association (AHA), Stroke is the 5th leading cause of death in the United States. On average, there is a reported Stroke every 40 seconds in our nation. EMS has a pivotal role in the Chain of Survival, but what if there was a resource available to every EMS system that could help with Strokes? If you guessed the First First Responder (Dispatchers), you would be right. They are an untapped resource with valuable information to...
GOAL: Awareness of the Syndrome, early identification of its signs that can be recognized by parents/caregivers, EMS systems, and other first responders, with transport to an appropriate hospital for further evaluation & care. Background: Two labels for one scary syndrome. The first one is from the WHO and the second one is from the CDC for the U.S. The “temporally linked” to COVID is important since no one is sure yet that COVID-19 and this syndrome are cause and effect,...
United States: CDC Health Advisory from the Health Alert Network: https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2020/han00432.asp CDC MIS-C for Parents: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/children/mis-c.html CDC COVID and MIC-C Information for Healthcare Providers: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/pediatric-hcp.html#anchor_1589580133375 Medscape Video & Article on MIS-C in Kids: What Do We Know? https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/930686 Canada: CPSP/PCSP Public Health Alert for Acute Inflammatory Illness in Children…. : https://www.cpsp.cps.ca/uploads/private/CPSP_Public_Health_Alert_Acute_inflammatory_illness_and_COVID-19.pdf CPSP Website for COVID-19 in hospitalized children and non-hospitalized children with chronic co-morbid conditions: https://www.cpsp.cps.ca/surveillance/study-etude/covid-19-in-hospitalized-children-and-non-hospitalized-children-with-chronic-co-morbid-conditions The Provincial Council for Maternal & Child Health (PCMCH) & Kids...
A new syndrome, now named MIS-C, has been identified in multiple countries in the past few weeks which seems to be associated with COVID-19 infection, even if COVID was asymptomatic or unrecognized. It manifests itself as a Kawasaki-like illness and/or as Toxic Shock-Like Syndrome. It needs to be recognized as early as possible, so that monitoring, treatment, and testing can be started early in its course for the best outcomes. That makes it essential for Pre-hospital & Hospital Providers to...
Podcast with IAED - Annals of Emergency Dispatch & Response, hosted by Becca Barrus. Todd Stout, president and founder of FirstWatch, discusses the role of FirstWatch in COVID-19 surveillance, lessons learned from the Ebola virus outbreak, and the importance of emergency dispatchers increasing their resilience.
Police, Fire, EMS, and Corrections personnel (my apologies if I missed anyone) are all taught and practice situational awareness. This practice is what allows so many First Responders to go home safe after shift. In the usual application of situational awareness (Is the scene safe? Am I?), most threats to that safety can be seen or heard. That changes when the threat (amongst all the others that remain) is literally microscopic. And, the signs and symptoms of illness, a) look like...
JEMS Editor Emeritus AJ Heightman interviewed FirstWatch president Todd Stout on COVID-19. Todd shares some history of FirstWatch helping with health surveillance and emerging infectious diseases, ways that FirstWatch customers are using data during this pandemic, the importance of resilience, and our commitment to helping provide helpful and actionable information for all first responders via our health intelligence pages, webinars, and articles.
EMS1 article by Mike Taigman - Leaders from Montgomery County Fire & Rescue Service and Snohomish County Fire District detail how they’re monitoring the COVID-19 surge and preparing for the worst-case scenario.
Any time there is a novel virus, regardless of what it is or where it came from, there is a learning curve for virologists, infectious disease doctors, epidemiologists, other health care workers, first responders and the public. This is even more pronounced when it is a global event, since different countries note and report different data points and have different thresholds for including these elements in a report. Those countries with their own robust health systems, especially with epidemiologically-based public...
A new COVID-19 resource page on EMS.gov provides easy to find links to the most relevant and up-to-date information from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), NHTSA Office of EMS and other Federal agencies involved in the response to the pandemic. This includes guidance for treating potential COVID-19 patients, information on PPE use and supplies and processes for handling healthcare providers who have been exposed to coronavirus.
Executive Summary: For those Public Safety Agencies reporting an employee’s possible exposure, and expecting notification of a positive COVID-19 disease result from the hospital or public health officer, the expanded Ryan White Act of 2009 update has been published by NIOSH/CDC and will address this issue. Furthermore, emergency response employees covered by the Act have been defined. Full Report: The CDC/NIOSH has updated the Infectious Diseases and Circumstances Relevant to Notification of Emergency Response Employees: Implementation of Sec.2695 of the Ryan White...
FirstWatch Medical Director, Silvia Verdugo Puts COVID-19 in Perspective in JEMS Interview
EMS1 article - Our friend Catherine Counts PhD from Seattle shares data visualization resources to help manage the response to our pandemic.
EMS1 article by Rob Lawrence - Communication, PPE and decontamination strategies highlighted the 4th FirstWatch and Paramedic Chiefs of Canada COVID-19 webinar
This joint webinar of PCC, AIMHI, IAED, NAEMT, CAA, and FirstWatch was the 4th in a series. We were proud to see that over 1,300 people registered for it. With Matt Zavadsky from MedStar moderating, our presenters for Solano County, California were Dr. Bela Matyas from Solano County Public Health, Ted Selby from Solano County EMS, and Jimmy Pierson from Medic Ambulance. They provided incredibly useful and practical information from their ongoing experience providing care for COVID-19 patients quarantined at Travis Air Base. One example of insight shared...
