I ran across this list of bad nursing homes in the Louisville area and thought it would be fun to get the EMS opinion on which one was the worst. This poll includes all of the nursing homes in our area that were included in the ‘needs improvement’ list. Enjoy.
Safety for Employees and Patients at Rural/Metro Louisville Friday, Aug 21 2009
Uncategorized 10:57 pm
The set of regulations that governs ambulance providers in the state of Kentucky is KAR7:501. A copy of this regulation can be found here. Reports from employees at Rural/Metro suggest that this service is woefully non-compliant with several safety issues. In section 5, “Provider Management Requirements,” the following items are required of employers:
3. Health records, in a separate secure file, that include:
a. A post offer of employment health assessment;
b. Annual tuberculin skin testing or other method of evaluation;
c. Hepatitis-B vaccinations and seroconversion testing unless exempted by the employees’ physician, or an employee signed waiver; and
d. A record of all work-related illnesses or injuries;
I have it on good authority that no health assessments are done on any employees. Several employess have said that a TB test has never been offered to them. The same employees have also stated that no Hep B vaccinations have ever been offered.
(f) Maintain an infection control plan in accordance with KyOSHA guidelines;
None of the employees I have talked to have any idea what the infection control policy for Rural/Metro is, much less who is in charge of it.
(g) Maintain a written plan for training or educating personnel for responding to hazardous materials, criminal, and potential terrorist incidents, including plans for the protection and decontamination of patients, ambulances, equipment, and staff;
I asked a few employees if anything was provided from this category and they just laughed.
(h) Maintain a written plan for the quality assessment of patient care and provider quality improvement including a periodic review of ambulance run report forms, and evaluation of staff performance related to patient care. This plan shall address as a minimum:
1. Employee health and safety;
2. Compliance with protocols and operating procedures;
3. Assessment of dispatch procedures;
4. Vehicle operations and vehicle safety;
5. Equipment selection processes;
6. Equipment preventive maintenance programs; and
7. A process for the resolution of customer complaints;
It was also reported to me that Rural/Metro Louisville has no QA process whatsoever and has not had one in years. Each run ticket is checked for billing issues, but the person who does this has no medical training whatsoever and most employees have never received feedback on a run form. In fact, in an informal poll, many employees could not name the medical director of the service.
(i) Maintain a written plan for training personnel and responding to mass casualty incidents and disasters, which shall establish:
1. Casualty collection sites;
2. Casualty evacuation sites;
3. Training and education for personnel; and
4. The organizational structure that shall outline an internal incident command structure and how it integrates into a community response plan;
From what I can gather, no formal MCI plan has ever been put into place. I could not find any employee who could so much as find a triage tag on one of their trucks.
I could go on, but shooting fish in a barrel is not very sporting. In the final analysis, Rural/Metro is not offering their employees much in the way of safety or organization. This serice has been making roll-over 911 runs for LMEMS as well. So these non-compliant crews are responding to YOUR emergencies Louisville. What do you think of that. Sound off with your comments below.
Brewer Accused of Methadone Usage Friday, Aug 21 2009
Uncategorized 7:25 pm
So apparently Brewer like to party a little when she was clocked in. Here is a quote from the article:
However, a search of Brewer’s prescription drug history from May 2008 to May 2009 found the EMT, who was driving an ambulance for 11 months of that time, filled 19 new prescriptions at 11 pharmacies from 10 different providers.
Four of them were filled after the fatal crash.
And she didn’t learn anything afterwards either. Nice.
Forum topic on this has already been started.
EMS Workers of Louisville Unite! Monday, Aug 17 2009
Uncategorized 4:02 am
This webpage is a safe place for all EMS workers in the Louisville, KY area to meet, discuss, and cause positive changes in the pre-hospital work environment. Be advised, this is not a site where you can spray unproductive hatred at your employers. We will strictly follow the WordPress.com terms of service. This is a place where you are free to openly discuss working conditions, protocol, policies, safety issues, and the ethical practices of the various EMS services that operate in the Louisville Metro Area.
The key to using this site effectively is for us to remain anonymous. My promise to everyone posting on this site is that I am never going to try to find out who you are. I want you to post unedited, honest opinions without fear of reprisal here. If you are concerned that your employer has unsafe practices or is committing ethics violations, I want you to post that here. In order for you to do that safely, you need to be sure that you are protected online. There are ways to access and post to the message board anonymously. I will soon construct a page to help you get that done. If we do not violate the terms of service, no one can complain about what we do here. If you access the site anonymously I will never know who you are, and there is no way anyone can ever take action against you for posting here.
It’s that simple.
A word to employers: You may be dismayed at the fact that this website is allowed to exist, and you may wish to have this site taken down or forbid your employees to access it. I hate to tell you this, but we live in the United States of America and there is this pesky thing called the Constitution that gives us the right to free speech and assembly. If anyone posts anything here that is obscene, hateful, possibly full of slander or libel I will remove it as soon as I am made aware. But if someone questions the ethics of making employees work mandatory shifts and not be provided the proper safety equipment in which to do it, you are just going to have to deal with it. Employers who are smart will come here often to see what their employees really think about working for their service. Much can be learned about morale by reading what your employees write on a site like this. You would be wise to check back and read this often rather than try to get this site taken down. This is a window to what your employees really think about you. They are going to think this whether or not this site exists. So our existence is actually a resource for you.
