Did something change with the Hospitals on the PCWIN system in Tucson?

[ruffzarf]

I've noticed for quite awhile now I am no longer hearing the medic to hospital traffic on the PCWIN 800 system in Pima Co. I just checked the system talk group list (again) to see if they changed, but they still show exactly what I have programmed. I hear everything else on the system just fine.
The only sites that I can pick up at my location are Golder Ranch and Keystone. Any thoughts? I always heard the medic call channel and also Oro Valley Hospital. And no, I didn't lock them out accidentally, ha.

 

[KB7MIB]

Did they go encrypted? Did they switch to cell phones because the TG's are not encrypted?

Federal law under HIPAA does not require these communications to be encrypted, (it's specifically exempted the last I read) but perhaps state law does, or it was a more local decision.

John
Peoria

 

[ruffzarf]

OK, so if anyone else out there listens to PCWIN, can you still hear the medics to hospital on the listed talk groups in RR? I have not heard anything in months, did they switch to a different system, or am I the only one that can no longer hear them?
Thanks!

 

[clareconley]

I monitored them today from about 1400hrs. to about 2100 hrs. I received activity only once around 2000hrs on TG 21007 between UMC Main and the Drexel+Heights Fire Department on site B. Not much traffic for the time of day.

 

[avdrummerboy]

Working in EMS I can tell you that most field to hospital comms take place over cell phone. Some areas still use the radio pretty heavily, and all hospitals and ambulances have the hospital med channels/ talk groups as a backup but it's not the foremost way anymore.

 

[ruffzarf]

That's the only thing that makes sense (switched to cell phones). If anyone in Pima County can confirm that?? Because I haven't heard any traffic on the medic to hospital hailing channel, Oro Valley Hospital, or Northwest in over 6 months, and I used to hear them constantly. I miss the old days, with my radio shack pro-7a, one crystal for FD and one for Hospitals, ha.

 

[DanRollman]

Paramedics often follow standing orders issued by their base hospital for how to handle common situations, which has cut down on the need for providing patient details and obtaining physician orders on the fly. If you listen to Valley Fire EMS1 (Drexel, etc.), you'll hear transporting paramedic units simply tell their dispatcher that they are enroute to a particular hospital with a patient suffering from some specific issue and are following orders, and ask the dispatcher to just relay that to the hospital. Then there isn't even a phone call placed by the ambulance. Most ambulance transports have become very routine ("we'll handle this one the same way we handled this exact same kind of medical call the last hundred times").

It certainly feels like 20-40 years ago, ambulances were more likely to be used for genuine emergencies where hospital transport by a family member was not suitable. Today, a huge percentage of ambulance transports are for things that would have been a trip to the ER in a spouse's car 30 years ago, and a significant percentage of ER ambulance transports are for things that would have been a trip to the doctor's office in the morning 30 years ago. No doubt the shift to using ambulances for basic non-emergency transportation to an ER waiting room has impacted the approach to hospital telemetry radio traffic.