Team Pulsara

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Kate Leatherby for writing today's blog post. You can connect with her on LinkedIn. 

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Change management is something I learned about during the course of my academic adventures, and at the time, it made a lot of sense. I could think of numerous examples of both failures and successes in change management that I had observed or been directly involved in during the span of my professional career. My studies had armed me with some valuable knowledge of different change management frameworks and ways to overcome and navigate process and people challenges. But I had never had a chance to apply my acquired skills in such a dramatic way until I started working at Pulsara.  

One of the first things I remember hearing about when I started at Pulsara was: “We have a saying here: change is 5% the technology, 15% process, and 80% about people.”

Pulsara’s powerful new functionality has received special recognition for its innovative and practical contributions to EMS and patient care. 

BOZEMAN, Mont., September 13, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, and JEMS (Journal of Emergency Medical Services) are proud to announce the selection of Pulsara as a 2021 Hot Product at the virtual EMS Today Conference & Exposition. Pulsara’s newest functionality allows EMS teams to practice at an expanded scope with dynamic tools, including group video conferencing, deep linking, the Pulsara Summary Report, and more.

Through Pulsara, EMS can alert their Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) team for a patient who may be sick but not critical. The community paramedic arrives on scene, communicates via live video with their medical director, connects the patient with their primary physician, and creates a healthcare plan. This frees up ambulance crews to remain available for time-sensitive emergencies while less critical patients can receive treatment without transport.

Meet Pulsara for live demos, simulations, and a game-changing ECG integration to improve clinical workflows and communication.

BOZEMAN, Mont., September 6, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, announced today that the company will be attending the Birmingham, UK Emergency Services Show where it will showcase its latest ECG integration with the Philips Tempus Pro advanced patient monitor. This state-of-the-art integration enables ambulance services to share Philips monitor diagnostic quality 12-lead ECGs directly with the A&E before arrival—across the Pulsara communication platform—enabling clinical teams to prepare for the patient’s arrival quickly.  

As the UK’s leading annual showcase of the blue light sector, the Emergency Services Show will feature hundreds of exhibitors, live demos, learning opportunities, and premier networking. According to the show’s website, “The two-day event brings together all disciplines from the emergency services sector to discover innovative technology and operational solutions, share their experiences and unite in their collaborative approach to public safety.” 

Editor's Note: On August 11th, EMS1, Fitch & Associates, and the National EMS Management Association released their fourth annual EMS Trend Report, proudly sponsored by Pulsara. Because the articles and advice found within contain such critical subject matter, we've elected to publish each segment one at a time here on our blog. Read, enjoy, share, and take to heart the following information brought to you by the most prestigious thought leaders in EMS. Today's entry is written by Kris Kaull, B.S., NRP, CCEMT-P, FP-C. 

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As COVID-19 continues to shape the landscape of healthcare, many profession-altering changes are here to stay. The most impactful of these is the paradigm shift to the “connected worker.”

While this may be a new term in healthcare, it has been covered extensively in manufacturing. As Natan Linder wrote in Forbes, “For years, we interpreted poor manufacturing outcomes to poor human performance (as much as 70% of mistakes in factories occur on human-centric processes). But things changed with the fundamental insight that humans aren’t actually the problem. Badly designed or overly complex work systems are.”

Healthcare faces even greater challenges. There was a time where a healthcare professional may have shined based on their clinical expertise alone. But this is no longer the case. I met with a neurologist in Seattle who told me that she makes, on average, 17 phone calls before she sees a stroke patient. Consider the time-sensitive tasks and coordination that need to be completed by a team in order to properly treat a critical patient: multiple phone calls, pages, answering services, handwritten notes, and radio communications.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Colin Moravec for writing today's blog post. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. 

COVID-19 has brought about a lot of challenges and changes in the healthcare industry. EMS agencies are BUSY. They have been pushing themselves to the max supporting their communities and putting themselves in harm’s way to help their communities through the COVID-19 pandemic. 

EMS agencies embody the value of grit. They get the job done at all costs, regardless of obstacles. This value is what makes EMTs and paramedics unique. They stay cognizant of their role in the community and in the chain of medical care, and they execute their job faithfully, regardless of the environment. This value of gritty determination makes up the culture of many EMS agencies and EMT professionals. 

Organizational culture is “a pattern of shared basic assumptions learned by a group as it solves its problems.”¹ It's the shared beliefs and values established by leaders and then communicated and reinforced in the environment, which ultimately shape team member perceptions, behaviors, and understanding.

Teller County, CO develops a first-of-its-kind telehealth program using Pulsara as the backbone for rural health communications

BOZEMAN, Mont., August 16, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that unites healthcare teams and technologies across organizations during dynamic events, published new details on Teller County, Colorado’s groundbreaking community paramedicine and telehealth program. Reporting on their initial challenges, the solutions they found, and results, the “911-INITIATED TELEMEDICINE: Next-Level Patient Care for Rural Colorado” case study reveals a new pathway forward for EMS agencies across the globe.

As COVID-19 escalated across the country in early 2020, EMS and hospital leaders in Teller County, CO identified that residents were reluctant to seek care—for any condition—at the hospital. “Up to 40% of our EMS volume does not want to go to the hospital once 911 arrives,” said Dr. Jeremy DeWall, EMS Medical Director for the Teller region. “Looking at our numbers, the fear was that we were missing a large group of people who were without healthcare or afraid to go to healthcare because of COVID-19.” 

Leveraging their already thriving community paramedicine program, Teller County’s Ute Pass Regional Health Service District and Emergency Medical Specialists, PC set in motion a new 911-initiated telemedicine program, utilizing Pulsara’s telehealth capabilities to address the acute needs of the community. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on EMS1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, David Wright, MS, PA-C, NREMT-P, for EMS1 BrandFocus. 

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The most important initial care step is to stop the burning process, but it’s also critical to know how to identify the type of burn and estimate the total area affected to help select the most appropriate destination for the patient

You and your partner are responding to a 911 call. Dispatch informs you that your patient suffered a burn. There is no additional information available at this time because the caller is quite panicked.

Your mind starts to race – maybe it’s a child who pulled a hot pot of noodles on top of themselves, maybe it’s a teenager playing with gasoline, maybe it’s a firefighter who was battling a fire, maybe it’s a grandparent who fell on a space heater.

No matter the situation you find when you arrive on scene, there are a few basic principles that apply to all burn patients. Here are 10 things EMS providers need to know to better assess and treat burns.

To further support care teams, Pulsara introduces enhancements to the communication platform’s calling capabilities.

BOZEMAN, Mont., July 28, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading mobile telehealth, communication, and logistics platform that connects healthcare teams across organizations, announced today a recent enhancement to the platform: Pulsara calling featuring group video conferencing. This upgrade, available for all users of the platform at no extra charge, includes the ability to add multiple team members as needed across organizations and adds overall improved usability—including configurable default behavior for camera and speaker and advanced controls for call participants. 

“The group video conferencing addition to Pulsara calling marks an exciting next step in Pulsara’s journey to improve the lives of people in need and those who serve them,” said Erich Hannan, Pulsara’s Chief Technology Officer. “We've heard loud and clear from our customers how important exceptional audio and video experience is to support and enhance patient care. Pulsara calling with group video enables even more powerful and streamlined communication and collaboration across teams and organizations.”

When our customers experience the benefits of Pulsara—from faster door-to-needle times and minimized errors to improved team communication and reduced costs—it goes without saying that we love to share and celebrate their successes. LewisGale Regional Health System in southwest Virginia is just such a case, recently releasing both a press release and video testimonial about how Pulsara is helping them better support their patients and care teams.

From their press release:

“EMS plays a vital role in improving care for these patients, and we’ve known for some time that patients with life-threatening conditions receive faster treatment when EMS activate the appropriate hospital team from the field,” said Steven Pasternak, MD, emergency department medical director at LewisGale Medical Center. “This new, cloud-based, mobile technology further decreases the amount of time it takes to communicate vital data and activate hospital teams compared to traditional methods of communication between ERs and EMS. For example, if a patient has had a suspected cardiac event, the EKG administered by EMS in the field can be transmitted in real-time to the hospital, which enables the hospital to be ready to perform, if necessary, a cardiac catheterization procedure to open blocked arteries as soon as the patient arrives.”

Make a plan for treating pediatric pain that includes managing unfamiliarity and stress in both the patient and their parents or caregivers

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on EMS1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Jonathan Lee, for EMS1 BrandFocus. 

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The most complete definition of pain is “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage” (IASP). It is a highly complex and subjective condition in any patient.

With pediatrics, this complexity is intensified by the fact that paramedics don’t encounter pediatric patients as frequently, creating more unfamiliarity and stress. Challenges related to paramedic training and exposure to pediatrics often lead to myths and misconceptions. Here are 10 important things every provider should know about managing pain in children.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on EMS1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Sarah Calams of EMS1 Frontline Voices. 

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Community paramedics are pioneering new ways to care for mental health patients – here’s how

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, EMS providers have seen an alarming uptick in patients refusing to go to their doctor’s office or the emergency room. Many others – including those with urgent conditions – have even been hesitant to call 911.

“We saw patients who were just foregoing all of their medical care – they were ignoring their emergency conditions,” said James McLaughlin, director of the community paramedicine program at Ute Pass Regional Health Service District in Woodland Park, Colorado.

To ease his community’s fears, McLaughlin introduced a new Healthcare Options Mobility and Engagement, or HOME, program, which pairs an in-home paramedic visit with a telehealth consult by a physician – like Dr. Jeremy DeWall, EMS medical director at Ute Pass Regional Health Service District.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Brett Lyle for writing today's blog post. You can connect with her on LinkedIn. 

Annual Celebrations Bring Us Together

National holidays bring people together. We spend time with friends, families, and neighbors. We unite in common celebrations. 

But this last year has been different. 

Unity

In healthcare, the word unity has taken on a much greater meaning in the wake of COVID-19. As the world buckled under the weight of a global pandemic and many retreated into isolation, healthcare providers pulled together and risked their own safety to serve others. Information was shared across borders to help each other navigate uncharted territory. 

We asked ourselves many important questions: Are we putting our needs aside for the health, safety, and security of the general population? Are we doing things for the greater good? Are we sacrificing the right things and for the right reasons?

CONNECT with industry leaders on the latest research and best practices in STEMI, stroke, and emergency management in a post-COVID-19 world. 

BOZEMAN, Mont., June 21, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading telehealth and communication platform that connects teams across organizations, announced today the company’s inaugural Pulsara CONNECT Conference. Slated for October 12-13, 2021, this FREE virtual international experience allows attendees to engage with world-class industry experts and thought leaders across the healthcare community. With four tracks—EMS/Community Paramedicine, STEMI/Cardiac, Stroke/Neuro, and DES/Emergency Management—attendees will take away tangible best practices that they can incorporate within their region. Topics include everything from the latest research and best practices surrounding time-sensitive emergencies to creating systems of care that scale in a world attempting to recover from COVID-19 and prepare for what might be next.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Special thanks to Brittany Norman for writing today's blog post. You can connect with her on LinkedIn. 

2020 was a year of pivots.

Movies being released on streaming services and Netflix rather than in theaters. Peloton and home virtual gym sales through the roof. Zoom & Microsoft Teams replacing the office board room. All of these are shining examples of our ability to use technology to adapt during the perilous times of COVID-19. With our need to remain connected while isolated, we saw everything from your cousin’s baby shower to your favorite artist’s concert taking place online.

So what was the answer that Pulsara, a company already based in healthcare communication and connection, had for the sudden need for flexibility that the global pandemic demanded?

Enter: Pulsara PATIENT.