Pulsara Blog

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

When resources are lacking, these grant opportunities can help 

Operating a fire department requires an incredible amount of money, even for small or volunteer agencies. Certain budget line items cannot be sacrificed, while others may have a bit of wiggle room from year to year. Yet no matter how well-funded your department might be, you may feel like there’s never enough money to go around.

A sometimes-forgotten area of financial planning centers around preparation for incident management. While the basics like vehicles and radios may be accounted for, other facets could make a world of difference should a significant event occur.

Whether you’re looking for assistance with incident management training or want to upgrade your department’s communication tools, grant funding may be able to provide the necessary dollars to make your agency’s wishes a reality.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

Now that you’ve developed the initial groundwork, these next steps are key to finding success

The fire service is pivotal in caring for their community’s underserved population. Introducing a community paramedicine program allows public safety to dynamically meet those needs.

Yet, developing and successfully implementing a community paramedic program can be daunting. “Generally, anytime you’re implementing a new program, specifically a community paramedicine program, the challenge is you’re doing something you haven’t done before – and there’s nothing more comforting than tradition,” said Kris Kaull, chief growth officer at Pulsara. “If you lead the change, it means you’re a disruptor. There’s certainly something glamorous about that, but there’s also something very disrupting about being a disruptor.”

Developing a community paramedicine program involves several steps before visiting your first patient. After creating departmental buy-in from the top down, thoroughly evaluating the medical needs of those in your community, and selecting a few specific areas for your program to focus on, it’s time to put your plans into action. Yet even if it appears that your department has crossed every t and dotted every i, you might still find the execution of your program doesn’t start smoothly.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

Departments can play a large role in supporting the health and safety of underserved residents

The inherent nature of the fire service means that responses to community needs are usually reactive. Whether a 911 call is for a fire, a serious vehicle collision, or a medical emergency at someone’s home, firefighters can’t predict ahead of time where these instances will occur.

That’s not to say the fire service hasn’t made great strides to be proactive about their day-to-day operations when and where they can. For example, departments routinely engage in fire inspections to bolster the safety of local buildings. After all, reducing the likelihood of a fire starting is certainly a more preventative route to take than fighting a fire once it’s begun.

Proactivity isn’t limited to structure fires, though. Fire departments can also apply this line of thinking to the individual residents in their community by developing a community paramedicine program.

[While we are using the term “community paramedicine” for simplicity, there are other similar terms, including “mobile integrated health” and “community integrated health.”]

Many EMS agencies across the country already engage in community paramedicine programs, and the fire service can and should play an important role in those programs. Whether your area already has this type of care in place or not, there’s always an opportunity to provide greater support for the underserved residents in your community.

The following is an excerpt from an article by Kasia Kerridge, originally published on kktv.com on December 12th, 2023. Check out the full article here. 

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) - Colorado Springs firefighters are reflecting on how to better communicate with local hospitals after Club Q.

11 News spoke with the Colorado Springs Fire Department one year after Club Q, which has rolled out a tracking technology by Pulsara. Firefighters put wristbands on patients, connecting to an app, which gives real-time information to hospitals so medical staff can prepare. This is especially important for mass casualty events like Club Q.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

This platform helps ensure consistent and reliable communication when it matters most

Think about the last 10 conversations you had with someone who wasn’t standing right next to you. There’s a pretty good chance you communicated through text, FaceTime, social media messaging or even a good old-fashioned phone call. It’s highly unlikely you sent them a page, much less a fax.

Today’s communication technology has grown in leaps and bounds. We have confidence that our voicemails are heard and our texts are read, but older methods of communication can leave the sender wondering if their message was received.

When so many millions of people use their smartphones to relay simple information – “Remember to stop at the store to buy milk on the way home” – why would first responders continue to trust older technology to communicate vital information?

“You don’t know what you don’t know,” said Brandon Means, senior vice president of sales at Pulsara. A career paramedic and flight nurse, he was formerly a firm believer in using radios to relay critical patient data.

“I thought our radios worked fine – until they didn’t,” he explained. “They may be working fine on my end, but on the other end, it may sound garbled. There’s a reason we use modern technology in our daily lives. Firefighters, paramedics, nurses and physicians push back and say, ‘No, my pager works fine.’ Well, there’s also a reason they don’t use their radio to call their child riding their bike down the street. It’s just not reliable or consistent.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

Colorado Springs Fire Department has significantly improved patient outcomes with Pulsara

When you work in a busy fire department, it seems as if there’s never enough time to learn and implement a new piece of technology. Such was the case for Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD), an agency that currently encompasses 23 stations with over 500 firefighters. Serving the second largest city in Colorado, they run about 80,000 calls per year across a large service area of over 195 square miles. 

Despite having a full plate already, CSFD has long recognized the importance of continuously striving to improve patient outcomes. After hearing about Pulsara, a communication tool that works to bridge gaps between providers, they realized their department could benefit from such technology.

“I think the transition of care and communication between prehospital medical care and a hospital-based system is fraught with peril,” said Matthew Angelidis, M.D., co-chief medical director at CSFD. “As you’re trying to give a report and information about a patient and the care that’s been rendered to a health care provider in a hospital, lots of information can be lost in translation. I think we struggled to have effective, high-quality patient care information communicated between firefighters and paramedics and the hospital-based resources the patients were transitioning to.”

Joey Buttenwieser, a lieutenant at CSFD, agrees communication challenges were a huge area of opportunity for their agency. He notes that consistent communication has now become the norm since the department implemented Pulsara.

“This system helps first responders talk to a handful of our medical directors directly through Pulsara instead of calling the hospital and getting whichever emergency room doctor happens to be rotating through that day,” said Buttenwieser.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article originally appeared on FireRescue1.com. Special thanks to our guest author, Courtney Levin, for FireRescue1 BrandFocus Staff.

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Building muscle memory eases stress during critical emergencies

According to the U.S. Census, 29.15 million people lived in Texas in 2020. Estimates for 2022 show that figure has likely surpassed the 30 million mark as the Lone Star State continues to see a huge influx of new residents. Providing emergency medical care to that many people is an extraordinarily tall task, but one the state has worked to improve upon in recent years.

The tipping point came in 2020 as COVID-19 presented the United States with unprecedented medical challenges. Residents in Texas who needed specialized hospital care due to the virus were often caught in a tangle of delays, as medical teams weren’t always working from the same playbook.

“We heard stories across the state where multiple fixed-wing aircraft showed up at the wrong airport to pick up the wrong patient,” said Joey Branton, senior vice president of strategic initiatives at Pulsara. “They were making a minimum of 30 phone calls per patient transfer.”

While the pandemic put immense pressure on first responders and the health care system, mass casualty incidents like active shooters and natural disasters didn’t stop. It quickly became clear that those in Texas needed a better way to manage patients from start to finish.

A statewide wristband system was put in place to give every patient a unique ID that could be used across organizations. But it was the coupling of that initiative with the Pulsara platform which enabled fire and EMS providers to significantly improve their level of care.

Pulsara helps streamline communication between first responders during single-patient events and mass casualty incidents. As with any skill, confidence in using this tool comes through the muscle memory built up through regular use. “First responders in Texas realized to be truly proficient at using the efficiencies provided by the Pulsara platform, they needed to use it every day,” said Branton.

Gain insight into how go/no-go situations are resolved by incident commanders and how you can level-up your own decision-making skills.

There are countless debates in the fire service that come down to simple go/no-go decision-making: go to the roof or not, search the fire building or not, take action at an active shooter event or not, to name a few. Go or no-go decisions become a very real situation with very real consequences.

Incident commanders, in particular, are routinely faced with making decisions that will ultimately result in either successful outcomes or compromised safety of citizens and firefighters alike. This digital eBook edition helps company and chief officers manage these moments and make smart decisions that balance firefighter safety and service to the community.