new contest

[Just Plain Ruff]

that's your final entry brent. nice diagram

[unknown]

At AEL we have 2 charity programs. It would be easy enought to say the money would go there. BUT honestly I would put the money towards the upgrading of our B206LR, this providing a safer air craft for my flight crews. HOWEVER- in the industry we work in 1 million wouldnt go far.... So I would say I would like to use it for community outreach- improvement on the helipads at rural firedepartment, EMS stations and Hosptials. Many of them are unsafe and many of them are not FAA qualified. So there I would still spend it to provide a safer invironment for my crew members.

[notvsa]

I'd buy an EMS train.

Why you ask?

Think about it man, it's an ambulance train. It already exudes awesome.

[JPINFV]

The first thing that I would do would be to put money towards a new base of operations. When I left the company, there were over thirty-five units that were not assigned to 24-hour units. There was literally no more space in the building to store units, so units were being stored outside. In addition, there were only a handful of parking spots available, not nearly enough for the amount of workers (billing, dispatch, executives, wheelchair van drivers, EMTs) that were expected to show up. This was compounded by the fact that the building was in a light industrial section of the city, so street parking was very limited too. Furthermore, dispatch was overflowing with people (2 ambulance dispatchers, 1 wheelchair van dispatcher, several call takers) to the point that some of the call takers were being moved out of dispatch. With out a larger base of operations, any sort of expansion would be painful, at best, impossible at worse. In addition, this would allow more space for training and the like.

Second, I would increase the budget for crew chiefs while increasing their responsibilities. In the two years that I worked at my old company, I received almost zero feedback after clearing field training. By zero, I mean nothing. No praise, no criticism. Never once did a crew chief show up on a call to observe. Not once did I receive a PCR back with comments. It seemed (albeit I never was one) that the crew chief's job was to make sure everyone showed up and got out on time, go around collecting back boards, and sit around for a few hours in case something happened and then go home.

Next, I would increase starting page at least another dollar as well as liberally give raises across the board to reflect the new starting wage. Nothing is worse than working for a raise only to see it "wiped away" when everyone else gets a raise a few months later and you're back to what is considered a starting wage. I say giving the dollar wages "liberally" because I don't want to reward incompetence, but this would be a case were meidocracy would merit at least a small raise. Increasing the pay would help to round out the department. There was simply not enough people working when I was there and this took a toll on crew morale, and subsequently crew behavior (destroying equipment, bad patient care, etc). It doesn't matter how much you get paid if you are working 12 hour shifts constantly without a break.

Finally, I would implement an electronic PCR system. I believe that electronic PCRs would benifit the company by increasing PCR compliance and make QA easier. This would have an additional effect of insuring that the fields required to reimbursment are filled out. I would make sure to budge enough money to include paying a premium for durability (must be able to survive in a company that has over 80k calls for service (non-emergent, emergent, and critical care transports) a year), technical support services, and other necessary accessories (power cords and printers for every unit, for example).

[Richard B the EMT]

An EMS Train? Needs train tracks.

As I see it, the tornado, hurricane, or tsunami blew or washed the tracks away, and the earthquake broke a 50 foot wide gap in them.

Also presumes there were tracks near the incident in the first place.

[notvsa]

An EMS Train? Needs train tracks.

Not my train...

Can't really talk about it. Patent pending...

Ambulance trains, you'll see.

[Richard B the EMT]

Now, I am thinking of one tractor pulling 2 trailers, like as I have seen on the New York thruway. These so called "double bottoms" are still illegal in the city of New York.

They have been described as rubber wheel trains, especially by their detractors.

However, they have to move the current equivalent of the MASH (what is that, a CASH? Someone with the proper acronym and translation, please?) from the non flying base to the airport to transport in the Galaxy C5A.

[JPINFV]

An EMS Train? Needs train tracks.

As I see it, the tornado, hurricane, or tsunami blew or washed the tracks away, and the earthquake broke a 50 foot wide gap in them.

Also presumes there were tracks near the incident in the first place.

Just make sure that there's a good number of SNFs, dialysis clinicals, and a hospital somewhere along the line and it should have plenty of busniess.

[ninjaemtff]

So, I was going to try to make what I originally said better, but while doing so, I realized that most of the things I was thinking of, or most of the ways to make it better I would have been taking from other posters, and I felt that would be wrong. Therefore, I stand by my original post. Thank you.

[captainstandup]

I would spend $900K EDUCATING our staff. $100K would be used to purchase wooden stakes to be driven into the heart of the redneck training system in our state and hopefully have a few left over to take care of the AHA. (Now thats what I call remediation to success!)