Cell phones and ambulance transport?

[Stavro35]

I was transported by Bainbridge island Ambulance from Virgina Mason Winslow, direct admit to Virgina Mason Seattle, CICU (Cardiac intensive care unit) . Instead of using the med channel they normally use to communicate with a hospital, the paramedic communicated with the hospital by cell phone. Is this a common practice for direct admit patients? I know I've heard Bainbridge ambulance communicate with area hospitals on med channels. So I am just curious.

 

[twowheel56]

Cell Phones in an Ambulance

The nurses station on the floor where you were being admitted to may not have had a radio. The medic may have been talking directly to a nurse to confirm you were on the way and make sure your room was ready so you would not have to wait in the hallway for an hour or so until your room was ready. Hope you are doing better.

 

[Livewire3286]

Also have to keep in mind radio interoperability in certain area's (Rural) can be diminished as well and Cell phone might be better.

 

[N7DKL]

All cell phone now

I work EMS here in the Seattle-Everett-Tacoma area. EMS crews will often use the cell phone to talk to ER's since we can talk a little more freely than we can on an open VHF or UHF frequency. However whenever I can I prefer to use the HEAR since it is faster and easier. With that said...

I am a nurse working for one of the Seattle area ambulance companies doing Critical Care Transport. It's not AMR so that might narrow it down a bit. We only use Nextel for all comms now. We are dispatched by it and we talk to all hospital ER's on it. It's not a good system but it's cheap and I can't get the administration to understand that having a public safety organization (private or public) rely on civilian commercial "cell phone" technology is a really bad idea. We have no back up at all and although our rigs have VHF radios mounted our dispatch center does not have the ability to use our company frequency. It seems we lost our lease for the base antenna and they decided to just use the Nextel instead of getting a new one. We have had times when the Nextel system has gone down. Our operation comes to a stop at that point, unless we choose to use our personal cell phones to contact dispatch.


The WAC (246-976-310) says: (note item 2)

Ground ambulance and aid vehicles — Communications equipment.

(1) Licensed services must provide each licensed ambulance and aid vehicle with communication equipment which:

(a) Is consistent with state and regional plans;

(b) Is in good working order;

(c) Allows direct two-way communication between the vehicle and its dispatch control point;

(d) Allows communication with medical control.

(2) If cellular telephones are used, there must also be another method of radio contact with dispatch and medical control for use when cellular service is unavailable.

(3) Licensed services must provide each licensed ambulance with communication equipment which:

(a) Allows direct two-way communication with all hospitals in the service area of the vehicle, from both the driver's and patient's compartment;

(b) Incorporates appropriate encoding and selective signaling devices; and

(c) When transporting patients, allows communications with medical control and designated EMS/TC receiving facilities.

 

[AtomicTaco]

It's not AMR so that might narrow it down a bit. We only use Nextel for all comms now.

That must be why I can't find any freqs for Tri-Med.

 

[N7DKL]

It's not Tri-Med either, but I know that Tri-Med has nice MDT's in their rigs and most of their "radio chatter" is done by a button push on the terminal.

 

[AtomicTaco]

It's not Tri-Med either, but I know that Tri-Med has nice MDT's in their rigs and most of their "radio chatter" is done by a button push on the terminal.

Any idea what protocol those are running on? Only licenses I can find are an IG out of Ohio and an expired PW out of Burien.