CMED

[scottiantomlinson]

Hello all,

Getting back into scanning, used to be into it when living in CT. Trying to figure out how to pick up CMed patches to hospitals. I work in an area hospital and would love to hear what’s coming into the ED before they get admitted or if the cath lab is getting activated. On RR each region has a single freq, other sites show hospital on one and ambulances on another. Have not been picking anything up. Thanks! Your help is much appreciated.

 

[ecps92]

Hello all,

Getting back into scanning, used to be into it when living in CT. Trying to figure out how to pick up CMed patches to hospitals. I work in an area hospital and would love to hear what’s coming into the ED before they get admitted or if the cath lab is getting activated. On RR each region has a single freq, other sites show hospital on one and ambulances on another. Have not been picking anything up. Thanks! Your help is much appreciated.

You'll have to help us out a bit, and define where you are, as they will help out with with EMS Region we are talking about

Massachusetts C-MED - Scan New England Wiki

www.snewiki.com

 

[scottiantomlinson]

I’m between regions 3 and 4 so would program both but frequencies should be the same state wide with different PL tones.

What I’m seeing is for example

RR shows Med 1 is 463.0000

Elsewhere I see med 1 as 463.0000 receive and 468.0000 send with the appropriate PL tones per region.

Not hearing any hospital patches.

Any one know specifically what channels with PL tones are used for lowell general and Lahey to do most patches. I remember in CT certain med channels were more or less assigned to each hospital to give report so based on where an ambulance was going you knew where to listen for the patch.

Thanks!

 

[W1KNE]

Honestly more and more they are done via non monitorable radio systems vs over the air.

 

[wtp]

and in my county, everyone that uses a radio and goes into the hospital, is lost.
with all the insulation and metal in windows, it is a Faraday cage, no signals in, no signals out.
so if you are trying to listen in the hospital, good luck.
also don't use any tones as they may have changed and then you really get nothing.

 

[garys]

The CMED system in MA uses mostly non repeated channel pairs with the hospitals on 468.xxxx and the ambulances are on the 463.xxxx. The only consistent use of repeaters is on Med 4 and that's so that mobile units don't talk over each other. At one time Boston CMED had two repeated channels (Med 3 and Med 8) so that the Boston EMS paramedics could talk to the medical control doctors who carried portable radios. Those radios were HT-500 radios, if anyone is interested.

As W1KNE notes more and more ambulances are moving to smart phone based apps to do their notifications. E-Bridge and Twiage are the two I know of. A lot of private services use them even though the state requires them to have the UHF med channels in every ambulance. The two apps utilize text messaging to alert the hospitals of incoming patients.

The last I knew western MA (Berkshire County) still maintains the VHF HEAR system as UHF coverage was spotty out there. That may have changed, but I don't have any contacts out there. The link that ecps92 posted has the most current information.

As a result you're not going to hear the ambulance side of the traffic. Providers are required to provide Alerts for Trauma, STEMI, Stroke, and Sepsis patients so that hospitals can muster the necessary resources.

Boston hospitals require notifications only for acute patients that need to be seen immediately. Outside of Boston hospitals require an entry notification for every transport to the ED.

That's the short story. If anyone is interested I can do a long post on the history of CMED since it's inception in Boston in the mid and late 1970s. Boston had the first CMED system in MA, mostly paid for with a federal grant available as part of moving to modern EMS.

 

[W1KNE]

The last I knew western MA (Berkshire County) still maintains the VHF HEAR system as UHF coverage was spotty out there. That may have changed, but I don't have any contacts out there. The link that ecps92 posted has the most current information.

Still in use. We have three ERs in the Berkshire County. Fairview and Berkshire Medical Center Pittsfield and North Adams.
Fairview, bless their hearts, still signs off with the call sign "KWH594", which expired 20+ years ago.
All uses 155.3400 107.2 simplex.

 

[Citywide173]

hospitals on 468.xxxx and the ambulances are on the 463.xxxx.

Backwards. Ambulance to Hospital is high.

 

[ecps92]

Hello all,

Getting back into scanning, used to be into it when living in CT. Trying to figure out how to pick up CMed patches to hospitals. I work in an area hospital and would love to hear what’s coming into the ED before they get admitted or if the cath lab is getting activated. On RR each region has a single freq, other sites show hospital on one and ambulances on another. Have not been picking anything up. Thanks! Your help is much appreciated.

from a Scanner perspective, you only need the 463 channels, unless you want to attempt (need to be near-by) to listen to the ambulance side of the traffic, then also put in the 468's

 

[garys]

You're right. I blame my dyslexia. Unfortunately the way too short edit window has closed, so I can't fix it.

Backwards. Ambulance to Hospital is high.

 

[scottiantomlinson]

Thank you all. Programmed last night. I’ll see what I get.