Oral suctioning in a controlled environment is a luxury that just doesn’t happen very often for first responders. For patients with an airway emergency requiring intubation, you rely on equipment that is efficient, rugged, and safe in order to quickly and safely intubate and secure your patients’ airways. Effective suctioning makes a difference – perhaps even a life-saving difference – in a resuscitated patient.

 

Individuals with special needs make up an increasing proportion of outpatient populations. Better equipment, more effective medications, and the rising cost of medical facilities mean more special needs individuals are being cared for at home by family, friends, and home health personnel.

 

This means you, as an EMS professional, will run into such patients with greater regularity.

 

The patient has been entrapped for almost thirty minutes. An unrestrained driver going 50 mph who lost control and struck a tree, he is now unresponsive, bleeding profusely, and has the outline of a steering wheel tattooed across his chest.

 

His face was crushed on impact. You’ve managed to insert an OPA, and you are suctioning his airway and providing ventilations, but his condition is deteriorating with each passing minute. At last, his legs are free, and the patient is packaged. The next critical juncture in patient care arrives: How and where will the patient be transported?

As an emergency responder, you know that no two patients are exactly alike. Sure, you may employ the same protocols, such as ACLS during a code or PHTLS for a trauma victim, but each patient presents unique challenges, and you must be able to customize your treatment strategy.

Airway protection can be life-saving for people who are experiencing the effects of both acute and chronic respiratory illness. But airway protection is not an antidote to respiratory failure, and will not necessarily prevent it. Indeed, some doctors even argue that the need for airway protection is a sign of respiratory failure because the patient cannot effectively exchange gases on their own. Prompt intervention in a respiratory emergency may prevent respiratory failure in some cases, although there are no guarantees.  

Responding to pediatric special needs patients can be challenging. Depending on the disability, the person may be unable to relate pertinent information about their complaint, level of discomfort, or emotional state. And when the emergency involves the respiratory tract, it only increases the stress of the situation. Let’s discuss some considerations when performing a respiratory assessment on pediatric patients with special needs.

As we have witnessed through recent natural disasters, hospitals are not immune to power loss. Even a brief disruption in power can affect many critical systems within the hospital. Medical vacuum is one example.

 

Most hospitals rely on a central source for their vacuum. Generally, a pump, or pumps, in the basement creates the vacuum that is delivered throughout the hospital through a series of pipes. Without electricity, the pump cannot function, and the vacuum is lost. Let’s review how this impacts normal hospital function and ways to mitigate this issue.

March was National Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month (D.D.A.M.), an opportunity to raise awareness about the inclusion of people with developmental disabilities and address the barriers they face in daily life. Around 15% of the world’s population live with a disability, a number that’s increasing annually due to demographic changes including population aging and a global increase in chronic health conditions.

Like with other minority patient populations, it’s critical that first responders understand the unique considerations for treating and performing airway management on patients with developmental disabilities, to provide the most safe and effective level of care possible and continue enhancing healthcare accessibility and services for these patients.

If you could design your own airway bag, what would you put in it?

 

The longer we work in the field, the more we develop habits and preferences that find their way into our daily routines. You carry certain tools on your belt or in your pouch; you set up for an IV or an intubation using a set pattern; and you place everything in a specific spot so that you can grab it in a rush. 

The elderly patient began vomiting blood early that morning. You arrive on the scene and are rushed inside by the woman’s daughter, who quickly fills you in on the patient’s history–late-stage esophageal cancer. The woman is sitting up in bed, alert and clearly frightened, with bright red blood staining her chin and chest. She is gasping for breath as you quickly set up your equipment, but when you turn on the portable suction unit, nothing happens. You exchange frantic glances with your partner and scramble for a Plan B.