A Perfect Fit

     When EMS first got started, we were hard-pressed to find the tools of our trade. For the first few years, we tapped the military and the space program, along with the hospital and funeral home industries, to cobble together what we needed to do our jobs out there in EMS land. To say the least, those were challenging times. A cardiac monitor that worked perfectly fine in an ICU didn't fare nearly as well sitting in a compartment in our rig, getting bounced around day in and day out as we traveled to and from calls, or when we were out in the rain working a resuscitation. Early ambulance designs were mirrored after hearses, since they were really the only choice when it came to a vehicle that had the space to accommodate a patient lying on a gurney. Thank goodness those days of having to beg, scrounge or borrow equipment are long gone.

     We now have equipment and vehicles built specifically for the field of prehospital medicine. If you happened to attend EMS EXPO 2006 last September in Las Vegas (an event affiliated with this magazine), upon entering the exhibition hall you'd have seen more than 450 vendors occupying more than 200,000 square feet of space. It was a venue virtually the size of a football field, packed from wall to wall with goodies, and it was all for us. But stop for a moment and ask yourself just how that happened-how we went from begging, scrounging and borrowing to where we are today.

     As many of you know, for last seven years, one of my writing assignments for EMS Magazine has been to find the top innovations from the EMS EXPO exhibit hall floor. What you might not realize is how many of those innovations came from field providers just like you. If you think about it, it makes perfect sense: An engineer, educated and bright as he or she might be, would be hard-pressed to sit in some research facility and dream up the tools and technology that would do exactly what we need done in the field setting. Those engineers sit in warm, well-lighted rooms, with clean, dry floors and minimal distractions, while we routinely find ourselves working in the mud, the blood and the beer-two worlds as different and far apart as they can be.

     To make those worlds come together, there needs to be a relationship between you, as a street provider, and the manufacturers and vendors that develop the equipment and vehicles you want and need to provide quality patient care. That relationship, more often than not, starts in the exhibit halls associated with the more than 500 EMS conferences offered across the United States each year. It can be as simple as looking at a piece of equipment and thinking to yourself, This would sure work better if it only had ______. But your idea, great as it may be, does no good whatsoever if it's just a passing thought that never gets out of your head.

     A few years ago, I and a half dozen other EMSers were invited to spend a couple of days with a large vendor/manufacturer to brainstorm what they might do to refine some of their existing product lines, as well as what new products we'd like to see to better meet our needs. While I was not paid to be there (my employer gave me time off to participate), all my expenses were paid. In a nutshell I can only say, "What a great adventure." We dazzled the engineers with an endless stream of ideas. They in turn dazzled us with their thoughts as to how they might bring our ideas to life. The most incredible part was seeing a number of our ideas come to life in the form of equipment modifications or new products over the next few years.

     In truth, the relationship between vendors/manufacturers and field providers is like putting on a pair of gloves that have a perfect fit. The manufacturers and vendors want to sell us products, and we want to buy them. In the same right, we don't want to buy products that "kind of" work in the field setting. Nor do they want to spend the time and money to develop a product that doesn't sell.

     To facilitate these important relationships, when you attend a conference to get your CEUs, you need to make time to visit with the vendors and manufacturers in those exhibit halls. In the first place, it's essential that you keep abreast of the continuing development of existing equipment, as well as seeing the latest and greatest in new products. It makes no sense to provide patient care with obsolete or outmoded equipment. Secondly, without that oh-so-valuable face time, there will be no relationships and, as a result, no dialogue as to how to improve existing product lines or to plant the seeds for future products, both of which will help you continue to improve the care you provide to patients in the prehospital setting.

     I wholeheartedly believe that our investment in establishing and nurturing these relationships will return big dividends in the form of improved and innovative equipment. That, in turn, will help us better meet the needs of the patients we serve.

     Until next month...

Mike Smith, BS, MICP, is program chair for the Emergency Medical Services program at Tacoma Community College in Tacoma, WA, and a member of EMS Magazine's editorial advisory board.