1. Mass. considers monitored injection sites
What if injecting heroin was in a controlled, monitored and clean environment?
The state’s opioid battle has prompted some lawmakers to endorse the idea of “supervised injection sites” as another way to reduce overdose deaths.
“The Massachusetts Medical Society and the Massachusetts Hospital Association back the idea.
In a report released last year, the medical society found supervised injection sites can reduce overdose mortality and increase access to drug treatment. Much of the research is based on two sites in Canada and Australia.”
Mass. had more than 2,000 overdose fatalities in 2016. Fighting the epidemic will take many solutions.
2. ED physician asks why EMS bears burden of poor throughput
On the NAEMSP blog Clayton Kazan, MD MS asks when and why inadequate hospital capacity and poor patient throughput “become an EMS problem?”
“Our shared experience is that the triage nurse, in true pirate captain form, shanghais the ambulance crew and sentences them to hours on the wall as unpaid members of the ED staff. Part of this comes from a mistaken belief by some that the patient remains the responsibility of the EMS crew until such a time as the ED is ready to accept the patient, and part of this is sheer desperation at paralyzed ED and hospital throughput. But, again, when did this become an EMS problem? If the EMS call volume was ever too high, would it be OK for us to kidnap 2 ER nurses and put them on an ambulance? Why is the opposite any more reasonable or palatable?”
Kazan states diversion is a hospital problem that demands a hospital solution. Paramedics holding up ED walls everywhere nod in agreement.
3. This just in … sirens are loud!
Do you want police, fire and EMS in your community? Part of saying yes means you’ll hear sirens.
Pa. fire officials fire back at social media complaints about sirens
