Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Serving Proudly As The Voice Of Valley County Since 1913
Pictured left to right are STAT ambulance staff Ken Taylor, Mercedes Taylor and Jessica Richter during a Simulation in Motion training where they engaged in hands-on simulations to practice critical decision-making, emergency response, and patient care under realistic conditions.
Simulation in Montana (SIM-MT) visited Glasgow emergency medical services (EMS) in June to deliver an immersive and high-fidelity healthcare simulation training program. This collaborative effort was aimed to enhance the skills and preparedness of local emergency medical services personnel in handling pediatric emergencies as well as time sensitive illnesses such as traumatic brain injuries, strokes and chest pain. The SIM-MT truck, with an instructor, came to the area to allow EMS training to occur in a controlled environment where the staff could explore, make mistakes and learn from those mistakes in order to feel more confident when the real situation happens.
The first training was the evening of June 5, where EMS providers spent a few hours in the evening focusing on pediatric transport, specifically safely transporting pediatric patients into an ambulance when an emergency arises.
"STAT Ambulance was recognized back in 2019, and continue to be, a level three master platinum pre-hospital pediatric service. We have specific pediatric training that we do, put on by the State EMS for Children," explained STAT EMS Advanced Emergency Medical Technician and Training Officer Kalu Jensen. "At the end of the training we were given a new ambulance restraint device in order to transport kiddos. It's kind of an updated one than we already had." She also stated the basis behind the State EMS For Children is to reduce child and youth mortality and morbidity caused by severe illness and trauma.
The next day, June 6, built upon the previous evening's training of transporting a pediatric patient while adding in a situation where not only the pediatric patient, but also patients from various ages, were experiencing time sensitive illnesses and injury. "The training was focused on the chest pain, the out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, stroke, the traumatic brain injury and pediatric trauma," stated Jensen. The staff then went through another all-day training on June 14, where they focused on recognizing a heart attack, chest pain, cardiac arrest as well as performed further training on pediatric trauma and overdose.
When it comes to trainings, Jensen stated the goal is to always pick topics / situations that the staff wants to know more about and don't get to see a lot of so in the training they can get more comfortable with how to handle the particular situation. "It allows us to address what we have, what we see is our biggest concerns and then in return, the EMTs are more confident and they are able to address these things more and are more well-trained. They're more confident because they've seen it, they've addressed it," explained Jensen. In total 14 Glasgow EMS staff completed the three days of training, while Lustre, Hinsdale and a few from Circle also traveled to participate.
"We are excited to collaborate with Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital to bring our high-fidelity healthcare simulation training to the Glasgow community," said Executive Director of Simulation in Motion Sara Kaull. "By empowering local EMS personnel with hands-on training in pediatric emergencies, we aim to enhance their ability to deliver optimal care when it matters most. This training is an investment in the health and safety of the community, particularly the children of Valley County.
Unfortunately, or fortunately for the patients, the Glasgow EMTs have had to put the training in use already as a week after the pediatric trauma training, the EMS staff on call at the time had to respond to a pediatric trauma situation. "Everything was just right fresh in our minds. We don't have those very often. The three of us that were on call for the pediatric trauma were in the pediatric trauma training," said Jensen. "We also have had a chest pain call, and it turned out to be a stemi heart attack. We had stemi heart attack training in our SIM truck."
When reflecting upon the training and her staff, Jensen applauded her EMTs. "They work really hard and they train really hard. For a volunteer-based service, their fantastic. They dedicate their time and are out there, really focused on making sure they're patients are getting the best quality of care that they can."
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