VBT Fire Department upgraded to offer Basic Life Support services

On July 12 the Van Buren Public Safety Department was notified by the State of Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services that it had approved the fire department’s request to upgrade its Life Support Agency License.
As of July 12 the department has upgraded its Duty Crew vehicles from Medical First Response to Basic Life Support (BLS) Non-Transport. The fire department received its primary approval from its local medical control authority – Health Emergency Medical Services, Inc. (HEMS) – which oversees the emergency medical services for more than 60 agencies, including fire departments, private ambulance companies, air helicopter services, and hospitals that cover portions of Wayne, Oakland, and Washtenaw Counties.
After the local medical control authority signed off on the upgrade the fire department faced a thorough half-day state inspection where they reviewed the department’s policies and procedures, individual certification and training records of its personnel, equipment placement, mutual aid agreements, and Department of Transportation inspection records.
All four basic life support rigs – Squad 1, Squad 2, Engine 1, and Engine 2 – will have direct radio communication capabilities with HEMS and our medical control hospital – Beaumont Wayne – in the event we need to speak with an emergency medical doctor while at the patient’s side.
“Those needing medical attention in Van Buren Township may not notice much of a change because the trucks and the firefighters responding to their medical emergencies will look the same as before and we will continue our excellent partnership with Huron Valley Ambulance for Advanced Life Support transport and care,” said Deputy Director of Public Safety – Fire Services Dan Besson.
“However what this upgrade allows our firefighters that are licensed as Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) or Paramedics to do, when arriving before an ambulance, is to assess a patient’s blood sugar level and administer oral glucose to help temporarily reverse that, if applicable.
“Before the upgrade we were limited in how we could access a patient’s blood sugar and, in the case of low blood sugar, what we could do to try and reverse it. A patient with low blood sugar can have lots of different symptoms including blurry vision, rapid heart rate, headaches, shaking, sweating, trouble thinking or speaking clearly, and sudden mood changes and we would arrive at the scene and not be able to be of much help because we couldn’t rule nor rule out low blood sugar.”
The Basic Life Support rigs will also now carry epinephrine in a self-injector to reverse the effects of a severe life-threatening allergic reaction and advanced airway adjuncts to secure the airway when faced with a cardiac arrest situation. The BLS rigs will continue to carry Narcan™, used in the cases of suspected opiate drug overdoses, as they did as medical first response vehicles, he said.
“This has been a goal of ours for a long-time, but first we had to make sure we have enough EMTs and Paramedics eligible to work the Duty Crew to make the scheduling requirements work. Three-quarters of our department staff are licensed to the EMT or above and we are excited to be able to offer a better service to the community.
“The representatives of the firefighters association have been great to work with on this project,” Besson said. “It is important to have them on board because those are the ones that will be providing the service to the community. We planned for the upgrade to take place this year so the equipment, licensing fees, and training impacts were already budgeted for.”
The new license runs until June of 2017 and the fire department will have to continue to meet the scheduling, training, and reporting requirements of HEMS and the state of Michigan annually. Besson said the department plans to add devices to provide continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) capabilities for the emergency management of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) in September, pending approval by the medical control authority.