1. Civilians are part of active shooter response
Runners, concertgoers, parishoners, teachers, students and other civilians always begin care before first responders arrive to an active shooter incident. Rob Wylie, FireRescue1.com, applauds the acknowledgement of bystander first care in the provisional NFPA 3000 standard.
“The fact of the matter is this: No matter how robust our response, no matter how much we train and plan and work together to bring a cohesive response to these complex events, we still will not be there when it happens.
Who will be there are the people attending the show, the fans at the sporting event, the students at the school: bystanders.”
2. Mental health funding, resources for law enforcement
President Trump signed into law a bill to add funding and resources for police officers and mental health. Provisions include:
- Peer mentoring pilot program grants
- Resources for mental health providers on the specific challenges that LEOs face
- Research on effectiveness of crisis hotlines and annual mental health checks
- Sharing practices from DoD, DoJ and VA with LE agencies
Not mentioned is if there are provisions or opportunities to include firefighters, paramedics, EMTs and correctional officers who face many of the same risks of mental health problems and barriers to seeking and receiving help.
3. Better QA starts with assessing current QA
Is your department’s quality assurance or quality improvement process a mess?
Here are 7 signs of dysfunction from EMS1.com 7 signs your agency’s QA program is a dysfunctional mess
Brian Behn writes:
“In the dysfunctional QA program, providers rarely, if ever, self-report errors; it is only when the QA department finds errors that they are brought to light. This is not a symptom of bad providers; this is a symptom of a bad EMS QA program.”
