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‘Minutes matter’: Ambulance and Chair EMS, UPMC launch blood administration in field

By Karen Mansfield 4 min read
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Bobby Scott, operations manager and blood program administrator at Ambulance and Chair EMS, holds a unit of type O blood that is stored in a blood cooler in an ambulance.
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Larry Pantuso, vice president of strategy and clinical services at UPMC Washington, center, discusses a new program that enables Ambulance and Chair EMS paramedics to administer blood to patients in the field. At left is Dr. Vincent Mosesso, emergency medicine physician at UPMC and medical director for Ambulance and Chair EMS, and at right is Larry Pollock, executive director of Ambulance and Chair EMS.

Ambulance and Chair EMS paramedics are always on standby to respond to an emergency.

Now, paramedics have a new tool to save lives.

Through its affiliation with UPMC, Ambulance and Chair EMS is among the first in the region to carry blood on ambulances and administer blood to patients with critical blood loss in the field in order to increase survival and recovery rates.

“Our ability to administer blood before a patient arrives at the hospital is increasing access to rapid, life-saving care,” said Larry Pollock, executive director of Ambulance and Chair EMS, at a press conference Thursday at the Ambulance and Chair garage. “This is especially important for our predominantly rural communities that are a greater distance from the nearest hospital or trauma center.”

Studies have shown that patients in life-threatening bleeding situations have the best possibility of survival when they are administered blood. The sooner they get it, the better their chances for survival.

“This is tremendously huge,” said Bobby Scott, operations manager and blood program administrator at Ambulance and Chair EMS. “In my 15 years in EMS, this is one of the biggest accomplishments for Pennsylvania, for EMS, for patients, and for everyone involved that this is going to touch. This is huge; this is going to save lives. We believe it already has here in Washington County.”

Ambulance and Chair EMS can deploy blood as a result of a legislative change that was made late last year by the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, allowing for specially trained paramedics to administer blood in the field. Before the change, the only advanced life support treatment paramedics could administer was intravenous normal saline.

The program is a game changer for the region.

“We are equipping our paramedics with another tool to save lives,” said Dr. Vincent Mosesso, an emergency medicine physician at UPMC and medical director for Ambulance and Chair EMS. “An emergency department or trauma center can be many miles away, and minutes matter when it comes to saving lives. We’re grateful for the state’s guidelines – empowering paramedics to take action that can mean the difference between life and death.”

The program was implemented last week, and already blood was used in two emergencies in the field, before the patients arrived at the hospital – a postpartum hemorrhage at home and a near-fatal motor vehicle accident.

“Minutes do matter. While critical care teams previously administered blood transfusions only during helicopter transport, ground EMS units are often reaching the scenes faster and more frequently. The quicker blood is administered to individuals, the better their chances of survival,” said Larry Pantuso, vice president of strategy and clinical services for UPMC Washington and board chair of Ambulance and Chair EMS. “Today we join a small group of EMS agencies across the country, and an even smaller group here in our region, to take the next step to combatting morbidity and mortality related to significant blood loss.”

Two Ambulance and Chair EMS ambulances have been equipped with coolers to carry blood. The military grade coolers contain two units of blood that remain between 1 degree and 6 degrees Celsius, said Scott, who demonstrated how paramedics administer blood in the field at the end of the press conference.

“We do hope to see (the program) grow, and we do hope to see it save a lot more lives soon,” said Scott. “This is a regional asset, this is not meant just for the 34 municipalities that we cover. This is meant for anywhere we can get to geographically, within a reasonable amount of time so that it can benefit a patient. We often respond to mutual aid calls into West Virginia and Ohio, Greene County, Fayette County, Westmoreland County, Allegheny County. This resource can go there as well.”

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