DPS Trainer Recieves National Recognition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:    Megan Silverstrim, Cumberland County

                        717.218.2913

Cumberland County Emergency Services Training Awarded National Certification

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania– The Cumberland County Board of Commissioners recognized Michele Parsons today during their regular meeting.  Parsons is the Cumberland County Department of Public Safety’s (DPS) Emergency Services Training Coordinator.  Parsons was recently recognized as a Bronze Level Trainer by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP).  This is Parsons third time receiving this award.

To be eligible for this recognition first responders must become Indirect Authorized Trainers (IAT) for the CDP and complete an intense Train-the-Trainer course.  Upon completion of this program, responders return to their local jurisdictions in an effort to deliver a higher standard of training to area first responders.  The Bronze Level IAT recognition is awarded to trainers who deliver 10-14 courses that meet IAT training criteria within the federal fiscal year.

DPS facilitates and advertises hundreds of first responder courses each year.  DPS also conducts and participates in several dozen exercises each year as well.  For more information on the DPS training program visit www.ccpa.net/publicsafety

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Commissioners Proclaim EMS Week

Today, during their regular Monday afternoon meeting the Cumberland County Board of Commissioners proclaimed May 20th- May 26th as Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Week!  The purpose of this week is to recognize those in all steps of the EMS process from the dispatcher taking the initial call and offer pre-arrival instructions, to the EMT's and Medic rendering pre-hospital care, then the Emergency Room staff at hospitals.

Pennsylvania is fortunate to have a well trained, creative and top notch EMT and Paramedic force and is known for this across the nation.  T his top notch force is the product of Pennsylvania's large rural population.  There are not hospitals around every corner in most areas of our state, in fact for many people it's a 20-30 minute ambulance ride to a hospital.  That being said, patient care and a patients life is often in an EMT and paramedic's hands for sometime, meaning they have to be on top of their game and confident in their skills.

Cumberland County EMS units were dispatched to 29,419 calls in 2011.  These calls were not only in Cumberland County, but also to provide mutual aid services to several neighboring counties.  The EMS force in Cumberland County is comprised of volunteer and career EMS staff and firefighters and police officers with varying levels of EMS training.  Cumberland County is currently served by 11 EMS companies which staff 22 individual stations.

In light of EMS Week, the Board of Commissioners also recognized 10 EMT's who will soon be receiving Clinical Save Commendations from the Emergency Health Services Federation.
The following EMT's were recognized:

East Pennsboro Ambulance Service

Christopher Bowers, EMT (2 Clinical Save Commendations)

Jonathan House, EMT

John Myers, EMT

West Shore EMS

Mark Boland, EMT-P

Dewitt James Cline, EMT

Janette Cota, EMT

Devin Flickinger, EMT-P

Robert Houser, EMT

Steven Stilo, EMT-P

Charlene Wood, EMT-P (2 Clinical Save Commendations)

A “clinical save” as defined by the Emergency Health Services Federation must meet the following criteria to be considered for commendation.

-          Must be primarily involved in the pre-hospital clinical care of a patient

-          Patient initially presented to pre-hospital personnel pulseless and/or apneic

-          Appropriate ALS and/or BLS intervention and treatment were rendered

-          Patient was transported to the hospital and subsequently discharged from the hospital without significant neurological impairment

Be sure to thank an EMS provider next week!  Twitter hashtag #ThankAnEMT

Intern Insight- Gary's Last Week

This week I followed along to a 9-1-1communications group meeting held by the South Central Task Force. In case I didn’t describe what the task force is in my previous blogs, the SCTF is a regional emergency preparedness task force that coordinates both public and private sector resources when disasters happen. During the meeting they went over different public notification systems and other public outreach programs. I thought it was nice to see a government group being fiscally responsible while they were trying to come up with solutions for some of the issues that they have.

Back in week 2 during my stay here as an intern, I talked about going to a college in the area and how I attended a meeting about an exercise. Well this week we followed up with the college and discussed the exercise a little bit more. I found out that an exercise of this level normally takes around a year to fully prepare a plan, and then exercise that plan. This college is going to be doing the exercise in half that time and I thought it was great to see that everyone was on the same page when discussing future times for meetings and deadlines.

This is my last week here at Cumberland County Public Safety. I really enjoyed all the experiences I had and all the people I got to meet. I believe I got the chance to see behind the scenes activities that regular people never get the chance to see. I have a much better understanding of the importance public safety in our communities. I don’t know how this country would survive without all the great people who are in these types of fields.

Thanks for reading!!!!

Gary Hoffman.

When a Plan Comes Together- #1

When it comes to emergency services to old adage of “practice makes perfect” could not be any more appropriate!  We train, drill and exercise on all different types of levels all year preparing for the next bad day.  This training we plan and/or participate in involves an insane amount of planning and work from the very beginning.  We’ve deciding to bring you a long for the trip of planning an exercise from start to finish for an exercise we will be coordinating with Cumberland Goodwill EMS!  We will be blogging about each planning meeting, the organizations involved, the actual exercise and the after action review process! 

Last Friday Michele Parsons (our stupendous Training Coordinator) and I met with Cumberland Goodwill EMS to kick off the planning of an exercise.  First meetings in the exercise planning process always revolve around one topic, what are you trying to test?  The “what” typically involves an emergency plan or protocol/procedure.  For Cumberland Goodwill the “what” is their response plan to a large emergency incident during a car show event hosted by Carlisle Events. 

Because it is nearly impossible to test an entire plan in one exercise, Michele worked with the folks from Cumberland Goodwill to narrow down a more specific part of the plan that they wish to test.  With several specific objectives set, a few more items needed settled to really get the planning ball rolling! 

The next important step in the initial planning meeting is the “who” of the exercise.  It is important to create a list of relevant groups or agencies that would realistically respond to such an event to participate in the exercise.  Again, practice makes perfect, and the more we practice together the better off we are.  So a list of several emergency services agencies in the Carlisle area was created, along with DPS staff and a few of our special teams!  During this part of the planning phase a “planning team” was also created.  It is important to get input on exercise planning from other agencies to make sure you are planning a realistic exercise.  It is also important though to limit the number of folks on the planning team, so that there is an element of surprise when the exercise occurs, that will allow us to truly assess responders. 

This initial meeting is also the best opportunity to discuss a lot of exercise logistics, such as budget, possible dates and the desired length of the exercise.  The next step in the process will be to contact the potential participants, start designing a scenario and a schedule set up for the monthly meetings that will be involved in this planning process. 

So that in a nutshell was our first meeting.  Stay tuned and we’ll take you through this whole process with us! 

Intern Insight- Gary Week 4

            Throughout week 4 I spent most of my time working on the post-traumatic stress disorder project (PTSD). This project is very detailed, and I’m trying to make sure I include stress relieving activities that the employees at this facility could do as a team. I spent a little bit of time in the mobile command unit and learned that Cumberland County was one of the first counties in the area to get a mobile command unit.

            Once you walk into the mobile command unit you see that it is filled with laptops, radios, and some flat screen televisions. This unit would be used if for some reason the main center would lose power or something would happen that would force them out their building.

            As I said I spent most of my week working on a project about PTSD, and this is the same project I wrote about last week in my other blog. I have done 2 drafts, and for the most part the paper is done. But I am now working on flyers that will be handed out to the employees. These flyers will be about team activities to help improve communication, reduce stress, and improve team work. An example of an activity that I came up with was having teams build free standing towers. They will have a week or so to build their towers. When the competition is over they can vote on whose tower they liked more and why. This activity will help improve all the things I discussed above. That has been my week at Cumberland County Public Safety.

Thanks for reading!!!