Wednesday Conferences
Conference sessions are typically 75 minutes in length unless otherwise noted.
| September 29, 2010 | |
| 8:30 AM | Jason Dush, CCEMT-P, FP-C BLS Track This exciting lecture is geared for all fire-based EMS, third-service, and private EMS providers and educators. OB emergencies can seem routine and boring most of the time, but how many providers are prepared for the "real deal" emergency? This presentation covers the nuts and bolts of obstetrical emergencies, using educational slides and case studies of actual emergencies and delivery complications you might encounter in the field. |
| 8:30 AM | Scott DeBoer, RN, MSN, CEN, CPEN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P ALS Track Children have many of the same diseases and conditions as adults, yet assessment and management principles differ in some areas and are similar in others. In this lecture, Scott will review the essential components of a rapid pediatric assessment and offer some "just-like-adult" treatment tips. Using real-life case studies, Scott also covers airway management techniques and adult vs. child fluids and medications. |
| 8:30 AM | Cindy Tait, MICP, RN, CEN, CFRN, MPH Educator Track This presentation is based on the world-renowned program by Ron Huff titled, "I Can See You Naked: A Fearless Guide to Making Great Presentations." Cindy puts a fire and EMS educator spin on the top 35 tips that will help make your classroom presentation, skills sessions and preceptor experiences fun, effective, productive and worthwhile for you and your students. |
| 8:30 AM | Paul Pepe, MD, MPH, MACP, FCCM General Audience Track Worldwide, there is a spiraling risk for catastrophic events involving multiple casualties and/or resulting medical morbidity, not only in terms of acute injury and illness, but also subsequent psychological and public health concerns. Join Dr. Pepe, who was embedded in a leadership role in the Hurricane Katrina response, as he discusses the need for international cooperation in terms of prevention, mitigation, recovery and relief; expanding, modifying and enhancing current local infrastructures and capabilities for managing multiple types of disaster scenarios; and creating interfacility cooperative agreements in advance. Dr. Pepe will also address lessons from recent disasters and a specific review of the Katrina disaster. |
| 8:30 AM | Skip Kirkwood, MS, JD, EMT-P, EFO, CMO Administrator/Manager Track One of the criticisms frequently levied at EMS agencies is that they don't provide much in the way of career options for their employees. This session will explore the issues and describe for EMS leaders the things that need to be addressed to provide employees more career options than the two usually available: the "back of the truck" and the "front of the truck." |
| 8:30 AM | Steven Wirth, Esq. Administrator/Manager Track Effective documentation is the key to minimizing liability should a lawsuit ever be filed against your EMS organization. In addition, effective documentation is crucial in supporting the level of services billed to Medicare and other payors. This session, led by one of the nation's top EMS attorneys, will review, in an entertaining and informative way, the importance of effective documentation and ready-to-use strategies for building critical charting skills for EMS providers. |
| 8:30 AM | Steven C. LeCroy, MA, CRTT, NREMTP General Audience Track So, just what did happen? What actions could lead to such a verdict? Steve LeCroy was the expert witness for the plaintiff in what may be a landmark case for EMS. In this session Mr. LeCroy will present the cascade of events that lead to such a verdict. Learn what did or didn't happen. Could this happen to you or your agency? |
| 10:15 AM | Paul Pepe, MD, MPH, MACP, FCCM, Jane Wigginton, MD, FACEP  Recent studies have clearly demonstrated very significant outcome differences in cardiac arrest between men and women, and most profoundly favoring women of child-bearing age. These resuscitation advantages following cardiac arrest for these younger women strongly imply a very strong female sex hormonal effect. In this humorously presented duet session, Drs. Pepe and Wigginton explore the concept of pharmacobiology in terms of sex-related differences and review the role and very interesting mechanisms of hormonal influences. They will also present the results of their most recent experimental work, as well as preliminary human data in traumatic brain injury and the implications for future research and resuscitation protocols. |
| 2:00 PM | 2-hour session This exciting and fast-moving session will allow you to participate in wrestling with the leading issues facing EMS administrators, managers and chiefs today in an engaging facilitated "lightning round" format. Hosted and facilitated by the National EMS Management Association (NEMSMA) the session will address a wide range of topics solicited from registrants. Each topic will be introduced by a national leader in a 10-minutes "lightning round" presentation and then opened to the floor for discussion. As part of the EMS conference program this session is open to anyone interested in leadership and management issues. However you must come prepared for lively and possibly controversial discussions and you must indicate while registering that you will be attending. Participation is limited to the first 75 registrants. |
| 3:00 PM | Bryan Bledsoe, DO, FACEP, FAAEM BLS Track Hypertension is a common condition encountered in prehospital care, but when does it become dangerous? This presentation will update attendees on the current treatment recommendations for hypertension and hypertensive emergencies with particular emphasis on prehospital care strategies. |
| 3:00 PM | Scott DeBoer, RN, MSN, CEN, CPEN, CCRN, CFRN, EMT-P ALS Track In spite of what you might hear, children, like adults, do feel pain, anxiety and fear, and use of appropriate sedation is crucial for humane patient care. Scott reviews current sedation and pain management techniques, as well as the rationale for discarding some of the "way we've always done it" methods. Also covered will be conscious/procedural sedation; preparing for sedation; local pain management, beginning at triage; alternative routes of medication administration; and analgesics vs. sedatives vs. both. |
| 3:00 PM | Heather Davis, MS, NREMT-P Educator Track Active disengagement is the term used to describe students who are not being disruptive, but are also not participating or paying attention in class. In this session, Heather explains the cost of active disengagement and its effect on class climate, classroom behavior, instructor energy and outcomes. Participants in this class will learn to identify behavior that personifies active disengagement and implement three techniques to address or prevent it from happening. |
| 3:00 PM | James Geiling, MD, FACP, FCCM General Audience This session highlights the challenges of deploying to an austere disaster zone - Haiti after the massive January 2010 earthquake which killed more than 200,000 and displaced more than a million - to serve a population in dire need of medical care and support. Dr. Geiling will describe the physical and environmental conditions facing his team, types of medical conditions most prevalent, and what would have been some "nice-to-haves" versus needed supplies and skills. Attendees will learn the practical aspects of preparing to volunteer for such efforts while understanding the overarching goal of service. |
| 3:00 PM | Jim Swartz General Audience Track Anyone who is keeping track knows that the death toll for on-duty EMTs and paramedics is rising at an alarming rate. Most of the deaths, says Jim, CEO and president of Dallas-based CareFlite, involve motor vehicle crashes and medics who are out of their seats doing patient care. By taking a proactive stance, CareFlite is the first ground service in the United States to eliminate side-facing seats in its ambulances. Attend this session to learn what one agency is doing to make its employees safer. |
| 3:00 PM | Tim Holman, BA, EMT-P, CFO Administrator/Manager Track Once you've been given the go-ahead to hire a new EMT, how do you determine who is best for the job? How do you fire someone who is undesirable? The objective is to try to change behavior rather than fire employees, but what if the behavior doesn't change and you have no other options? In this highly informative session, Tim looks at hiring and then retaining good EMTs, and firing problem employees. |
| 3:00 PM | Doug Wolfberg, Esq. Administrator/Manager Track The pace of change in Medicare rules, compliance issues and other critical developments seems to be dizzying. This "must-attend" session, led by one of the nation's top EMS attorneys, will bring you up to date on the absolute latest, must-know reimbursement information that is crucial to your bottom line, as well as your compliance. We'll cover the current rules on patient signatures, determining proper levels of service for billing purposes, dealing with tough reimbursement issues like medical necessity, and much more. This is a session you can't afford to miss if your agency bills for its services. |
| 3:00 PM | David Violante, MPH, EMT-P; Sean Kivlehan, EMT-P General Audience Track If you missed the Scott Frame lecture, or if you just want to know more about responding to a large-scale disaster, don't miss this presentation from two of the New York City medics who responded to a 7.6 magnitude earthquake in 2005 that devastated a large area of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and claimed 90,000 lives, as well as the more recent earthquake in Haiti. David and Sean will give their first-hand account of the emergency responses, medical care, challenges and successes of their team. |
| 4:30 PM | Norm Rooker, NREMT-P BLS Track EMTs and paramedics are more likely than ever to find themselves on the scene of an explosion caused by anything from natural gas malfunctions, kids playing with fireworks, pipe or car bombs, or worse. In this session, Norm looks at four types of explosion injuries, the significance of open air vs. indoor or confined detonations, likely injury patterns--both internal and external--and suggested response, assessment and treatment strategies. Appropriate for both basic and advanced-level providers. |
| 4:30 PM | Bryan Bledsoe, DO, FACEP, FAAEM BLS Track Eye injuries and conditions are commonly seen by EMS. This presentation will review the anatomy and physiology of the eye, and emphasize prehospital assessment and recognition of common eye emergencies. |
| 4:30 PM | Jason Dush, CCEMT-P, FP-C ALS Track Effective advanced airway management in patients remains controversial, with some studies suggesting that prehospital endotracheal intubation in general, and rapid sequence intubation in particular, may not be safe or effective. Other studies report the opposite, suggesting that RSI can be accomplished safely and effectively with low rates of complications. Join Jason as he explores the question: What exactly is the controversy all about? |
| 4:30 PM | Paul Pepe, MD, MPH, MACP, FCCM ALS Track Dr. Pepe looks at the detrimental hemodynamic effects of current ventilatory management protocols in hemorrhagic states and CPR and how his work and that of many others provides for a revolution in American trauma resuscitation and may explain bad outcomes in many cases of circulatory arrest, both traumatic and non-traumatic. He also shows how more recent work demonstrating improved brain tissue oxygenation during hemorrhagic shock challenges current thinking about the important role of carbon dioxide in resuscitation. |
| 4:30 PM | David Page, MS, NREMT-P Educator Track We know that the clinical experience is a magical and effective learning environment, but what are students experiencing when they leave the classroom? How do you measure those experiences? A national grassroots effort to collectively track and describe the elusive and magical "clinical experience" has yielded unprecedented online collaboration, educational research data and academic debate. This session will focus on lessons learned through online collaboration, and the challenges of accurately tracking clinical experiences and measuring competency. |
| 4:30 PM | General Audience Track Gather with representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Transportation and Department of Homeland Security to discuss the latest federal legislative policies and programs directly affecting frontline EMS providers. This will be a highly interactive session providing the opportunity to ask questions of federal agency leaders and to learn more about the policies and programs being formed in the nation's capital. This session is being hosted by Advocates for EMS. Networking reception for all those in attendance to follow. All conference attendees are welcome. |
| 4:30 PM | James Logan, BPS, EMT-P/IC Administrator/Manager Track Jim shows how the Memphis Fire Department turned its quality improvement program into the benchmark in EMS with the assistance of Federal Express--one of the leading customer service organizations in the world. Topics covered will include: forming partnerships; middle management paralysis; overcoming cultural issues; top-down ownership; successful facilitation practices; and medical direction and quality. |
| 4:30 PM | Mic Gunderson Administrator/Manager Track Response interval targets impact EMS outcomes, costs, logistics and patient satisfaction. How soon does EMS really need to arrive? Should 1% of cardiac arrests drive the response interval target? Why 90% reliability? This controversial lecture will challenge many current methods and introduce a new generation of approaches and tools for managing and improving EMS response interval performance that every EMS medical director, manager and regulatory official needs to know. |
