Hey all! Interesting discussion! I work for Regional One Air Medical in Spartanburg, South Carolina. We were actually the first pre-hospital agency in North America to implement hypothermia induction in early 2005 and have utilized the protocol on numerous patients since then. In the last year and a half, the Chief Flight Nurse/Program Director and I have gone around the world teaching about our protocol and our results. Next month we will be teaching at the Australia College of Ambulance Professionals (ACAP) in Queensland, Australia and then to Prague, Czech Republic and Auckland, New Zealand. All of these countries are extremely interested in implementing hypothermia induction in the field with EMS (albeit it all began with Melbourne, Australia but since has not gained acceptance throughout Australia). We are hoping to see it gain wide acceptance here in the United States.
We actually have an unrestricted educational grant to provide hypothermia induction and protocol implementation consultation free to EMS agencies that have a receiving hospital that utilizes the hypothermia induction protocol. If you are interested in learning more about it, or would like to learn more about having us come and talk to you service, please feel free to e-mail me. I also have numerous studies and protocols (both in-hospital and pre-hospital) that I could share with you.
Thanks!
Mike
