1 This Week: A Night of Honor Photos (May 12th) 2 New Paramedics 3 12-Lead Monitor Updates 4 We Are the Champions 5 Performance Pay Update 6 Vacation Cash Out 7 Training Schedule 8 Medic Calendar 8 News From The Front Line May 24, 2010 The MEDIC Dispatch Mecklenburg EMS Agency Dates to Remember : May 27th PALS Training 1800-2200 EMS Week 2010 is officially history! The five-day extravaganza brought many family-oriented, fun-filled events to Medic during the week. On Monday and Wednesday, attendees received hands-on demonstrations of Medic’s new Extranet System and were also treated to either breakfast or snack items (depending on the shift schedule). Tuesday and Thursday, brought the Medic Cookout, the new Medic Arcade feature as well as the Medic Store Open House. The Medic Cookout proved to be a record- setting event with over 700 meals served to the several hundred Medic employees and their families who attended! During the Medic Cookout, kids and kids-at-heart took to the Medic Arcade for competitive rounds of foosball, air hockey, ping pong and Pacman! Employees also stopped by the Medic Store Open House to try on sample sizes of their employee gift options and purchase an array of customized Medic apparel. The biggest point of interest during this year’s EMS Week was the Raffle Prize drawing. The more activities Medic employees attended, the more raffle tickets they earned. Employees also earned additional tickets for each guest they brought to an EMS Week event. The prize drawing will be held today, Monday, May 24 th . Notification of prize winners will be sent out via e-mail and page. You do not have to be present to win. Just some of the prizes up for grabs include: A Flat Screen TV Dell Laptop computer iPod Touch (multiple) A Blue-Ray Player Also, be on the lookout for this week’s EMS Week 2010 Questionnaire. The questionnaire is extremely short and will only take a few moments to complete. Give us your honest feedback as we look to plan an even better EMS Week 2011! EMS Week 2010 Recap
Transcript
1
This Week:
A Night of Honor
Photos (May 12th) 2
New Paramedics 3
12-Lead Monitor
Updates 4
We Are the
Champions 5
Performance Pay
Update 6
Vacation Cash Out 7
Training Schedule 8
Medic Calendar 8
News From The Front Line May 24, 2010
The MEDIC Dispatch
Mecklenburg
EMS
Agency
Dates to
Remember:
May 27th
PALS Training
1800-2200 EMS Week 2010 is officially history!
The five-day extravaganza brought many family-oriented, fun-filled events to Medic during the
week. On Monday and Wednesday, attendees received hands-on demonstrations of Medic’s
new Extranet System and were also treated to either breakfast or snack items (depending on
the shift schedule). Tuesday and Thursday, brought the Medic Cookout, the new Medic Arcade
feature as well as the Medic Store Open House. The Medic Cookout proved to be a record-
setting event with over 700 meals served to the several hundred Medic employees and their
families who attended! During the Medic Cookout, kids and kids-at-heart took to the Medic
Arcade for competitive rounds of foosball, air hockey, ping pong and Pacman! Employees also
stopped by the Medic Store Open House to try on sample sizes of their employee gift options
and purchase an array of customized Medic apparel.
The biggest point of interest during this year’s EMS Week was the Raffle Prize drawing.
The more activities Medic employees attended, the more raffle tickets they earned. Employees
also earned additional tickets for each guest they brought to an EMS Week event. The prize
drawing will be held today, Monday, May 24th. Notification of prize winners will be sent out via
e-mail and page. You do not have to be present to win. Just some of the prizes up for grabs
include:
A Flat Screen TV
Dell Laptop computer
iPod Touch (multiple)
A Blue-Ray Player
Also, be on the lookout for this week’s EMS Week 2010 Questionnaire. The questionnaire is extremely short and will only take a few moments to complete. Give us your honest feedback as we look to plan an even better EMS Week 2011!
EMS Week 2010 Recap
2
A Night of Honor—May 12th Photos
3
Medic’s very own, CMED Assistant Supervisor, Ray Kirby has become a living legend in the
world of motorcycling. Ray is known throughout Medic for his love of motorcycles. So it comes
as no surprise that in 2004 Ray founded VTX Café. VTX Café is an interactive, online
community for general questions, tips, modifications, classified and all other topics related to
Honda VTX 1300 and 1800 motorcycle types. The website has experienced phenomenal growth
over the last six years and currently has over 20,000 members worldwide. Members of the
online community hail from such faraway places as Australia, England, Germany, Switzerland,
Canada, Puerto Rico and from across the United States!
Each year, members of VTX Café plan spring, summer and fall motorcycle rides as a way to
come together and interact with fellow VTX Café members. The group has planned its major
ride for July 26 - Aug 1. To date, the group has approximately 30 bikes planning to participate in
the ride from North Carolina to Niagara Falls in Canada. VTX Café members also just complete
a bike ride in the Smokey Mountains and are planning a ride along the Outer Banks of North Carolina for next spring.
For more information on the VTX Café, please contact Ray Kirby at [email protected] or visit the VTX Café website at
www.vtxcafe.com. Way to go Ray!
VTX Cafe
Congratulations to
the following
individuals on the
recent, successful
completion of their
oral boards and all
other milestones
required for
recognition as Paramedic:
Peter Kourkoulis—May 12th, 2010
Milan Merges—May 12th, 2010
Misty Sochca—May 18th, 2010
David Toney—May 18th, 2010
Karim Mahmoud—May 19th, 2010
Chris Pinto—May 19th, 2010
Chris Pipas—May 20th, 2010
Justin Rowe—May 20th, 2010
Please be sure to congratulate them all! The Agency is
honored to have such great additions to our already
wonderful team of Paramedics. Great job!
New Paramedics!
Medic would like to extend congratulations to our very
own Steve Lennartz and Lauren Howell (EMT Brad
Howell’s daughter). Both individuals have been awarded the
2010 NC Association of Rescue and EMS scholarship!
Steve and Lauren received $2000 in scholarship money to
assist in their pursuit of higher education. We would also
like to note that these two individual were the only two
award recipients from Mecklenburg County!
Steve is currently enrolled at Forsyth Technical Community
College in Winston Salem where he is pursuing an
Emergency Preparedness Technology degree. He maintains
a 4.0 GPA (grade point average) and has been selected as a
marshal at the recent graduation ceremony
Lauren is currently a senior at Central Cabarrus High
School where she is the Student Athletic Trainer all of team
sports at the school. Lauren will attend Rowan-Cabarrus
Community College in the fall where she will pursue a
degree in Nursing. Later, the talented senior plans to
transfer to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
(UNCC) to major in Sports Medicine and Physical Therapy.
Congratulations to the both of you! Everyone at Medic is
extremely proud of your recent scholarship award.
Scholarship Winners!
Ray Kirby on his personally-built Honda VTX motorcycle.
4
To better assist your communication efforts out in the field technical reps from Philips are coming to Medic in the next
couple of weeks to review performance data and help troubleshoot any lingering problems with the 12-lead ECG. We have
made numerous equipment upgrades recently, including new Blue Tooth and data forwarding agents, and we need to know
how this has helped. For this reason, it is necessary that all field personnel taking suspected STEMI patients to
CMC Main continue transmitting the patient’s 12 readouts via fax as soon as possible during transport.
Below are specific instructions for transmitting your 12-lead ECG:
Your monitor needs to be in Bluetooth range of your computer.
Make sure you have entered the Incident Number as the patient ID.
Once the 12-lead ECG has completed analysis, push the (ü) button.
Choose the “Send” option at the top of the list.
A list of hospitals will appear (currently we are only sending to CMC, but the others will be on board soon)
Choose “CMCSTEMI” to transmit STEMI or questionable STEMI ECGs. This sends your ECG to ED Major and several Cardiology sites
Choose “CMCMAINEDONLY” to transmit other ECGs you wish to consult an ED physician with. This selection will send your ECG to ED Major only.
Reference your ECG by the Incident Number (Patient ID). It will take about 90-120 seconds for your ECG to reach the ED via Fax.
Advise the physician on the radio that you have faxed an ECG.
Any technical difficulties incurred cannot be allowed to delay the continuity of patient care delivery. Any problems with this
process or other monitor or tablet-related must always be reported to the Agency’s IT staff via 6111 or through the on
duty OA as soon as possible. Thank you.
12-Lead Monitor Updates
Medic, through the efforts of Jay Black, would like to organize anyone who is interested in helping to support our military
medic corpsmen over in Iraq and Afghanistan. In honor of Noah Pier, this group will meet to address the current needs as
well as lend support to our military medic corpsmen. The group’s first meeting has been scheduled for Wednesday, June
16th (B-Shift) and Friday, June 18th (A-Shift). Meeting times will soon
be determined based on feedback/response.
Decisions to made in the first group meeting include:
How many military Medic corpsmen will be supported?
Where or in what locations?
What types of items will the group send as part of its support efforts?
How often will group support packages be sent?
Any additional information, materials or suggestions that will assist in
recognizing and support our fellow military Medics overseas.
Anyone interested in participating in the group should contact Jay Black at [email protected]. Thank you.
Will You Lend Your Support?
5
CMED will be performing a CAD upgrade beginning at 1000
hours on Wednesday, May 26th. While it should be
transparent to the field, a lot of work will be occurring in
CMED.
Please limit any phone calls and access into CMED to only
those of an urgent nature until the announcement is made
giving the “all clear”.
CAD Upgrade Notification
The two week trial of the study, “IV versus IO during
Cardiac Arrest,” has gone extremely well. Over a 15-day
trial period, over 20 patients were enrolled due to your
cooperation and dedication. No adverse events were
reported and the daily distribution of study cards is working
well.
The study will start once again on Friday, May 20th at 7:00
am and continue until 150 patients have been enrolled.
Additionally, the paramedic survey was updated to include an
estimated patient weight and the IO needle color used
on first attempt at vascular access. Any deviations from the
study protocol should be described on the study voicemail
To allow employees to cash-out a limited amount of accrued vacation time on an annual basis.
Policy
Employees who have more than 30 days (240 hours) of accrued vacation will be allowed to
“cash-out” a minimum of one (1) day (8 hours) up to a maximum of five (5) days (40 hours) per
year for the amount of days over 30. This “cash-out” will be included in the second pay period of June. Vacation hours accrued thru the first paycheck in June will be used as the vacation “cash-out” eligibility criteria. Vacation hours used,
accrued, or earned during the “cash-out” pay period will not be considered in determining vacation “cash-out” eligibility. All
“cash-outs” must be in increments of 8-hours only. No partial days will be accepted.
Employees who want to take advantage of this benefit must have at least 240-hours remaining in their accrual balance after the “cash-out”.
Vacation “cash-out” requests must be submitted through completion of the “Vacation Cash-Out Form” to the Payroll
department. A copy of the completed form will then be forwarded to Human Resources to be included in the personnel
files.
The Payroll department has the authority to make necessary adjustments in an employee’s “cash-out” request if the “cash-
out” hours have been incorrectly requested (i.e., the number of “cash-out” hours is greater than the number of “cash-out”
hours available). For more information on Medic’s vacation cash out policy, please contact Accounting Coordinator, Darlene
