How do EMS patches work?

[acurayyz]

I'm trying to figure out how EMS units can talk to hospitals. Being in aviation, I am familiar with a system my previous company used to allow our aircraft operating routes out of Montreal and Halifax to communicate flight data (times, fuel loads, etc) to the operations/dispatch department in Toronto. The system was called AGRIS (Air Ground Radio Interconnect System) and in order to use it pilots would tune their COMM radio to a certain frequency, enter a code on a special hand-mike with a keypad which would inniciate a call to the operations department in YYZ. The phone would ring (on the AGRIS line), you'd answer the phone and enter in a code, a computer voice would repeat "(airport code) connect, RADIO 1) and then I could start talking to the pilots as if they were on a telephone.

Is the hospital patch system similar at all to this? Who answers the calls at the hospital?

 

[Keganm]

I can't tell you how the patch works, but I can tell you who answers it. Its any available nurse in the ER. I used to work at the hospital in Niagara Falls as a security officer a number of years ago and when I was there we called the phone that the patches came in on "the bat phone". At the time it looked like an old rotary phone that was bright red with a blinking red light and a buzzer instead of a ringer. It looked like the phone that was on the batman tv shows that the commissioner would call batman on..... In the time since I worked there Niagara EMS has changed their radio system so I'm not sure if its still the same or not.

 

[VE3JSO]

i think now with most ems are on fleetnet and hospitals have there own talkgroup i have to think that they have there own base radio that the cacc just patches the 2 talkgroups

 

[lifebot]

EMS Radio

We are the company involved with this nationally for many years. The answer is that many use cellphones now that alarm the ER nurses and physicians. But, many calls in major metro areas remain on UHF, VHF (HEAR) radio systems. Chicago uses, for example, the original MED channels at 468MHz but nationally and there 155.340MHz and adjacent channels are required for disaster fallback. Detroit, New York, and other major cities are similar. It is rare that a phone patch may exist. Now in many metro systems EOC or 911 centers selectively patch calls to hospitals via UHF or 800 MHz trunked systems based on the geographical location of the call and proximity for transport of the patient, if required. We also now are expanding to EMS Telemedicine using technology developed with the U.S. Military sending live voice video and even physiologic data. This is the trend, but LMR is always going to need to be there for those who cannot get broadband wireless connectivity. The new development is states now trying to deploy 700 MHz broadband using LTE or WiMAX Mobile to get dedicated bandwidth. In most instances commercial cellular will be unavailable during major events like 9/11.

 

[rc1990]

i think now with most ems are on fleetnet and hospitals have there own talkgroup i have to think that they have there own base radio that the cacc just patches the 2 talkgroups

Yeah. The EMS crew goes to a Tac channel assign to them by the CACC, then the dispatcher patches the Tac channel with the hospital t/g. That's why sometimes on your scanner, during a patch to a hospital, you sometimes see the tac ch. and for other patches you see the hospital t/g.

 

[exkalibur]

To complete the picture...

Each hospital has its own radio on the talkgroup assigned to it.

The dispatch console then has each of these talkgroups programmed into it. When a crew wants to be patched to a hospital, their dispatcher assigns them a Tac talkgroup. The dispatcher then patches that Tac talkgroup with the hospital talkgroup. They then send a call-alert to the hospital so that their radio rings so they know there's an incoming call.

When the patch is complete, the dispatcher simply dissolves the patch and the crew switches back to their regular talkgroup.

 

[Gator596]

And then, no matter how desperate the situation is or how well the crew sends the patient's info, or how excited they may sound - nine times out of ten an annoyed sounding nurse at the hospital will whine, "Roger, we will recieve you at triage."

 

[mikewazowski]

We are the company involved with this nationally for many years.

You need to check what forum you're in before posting.

HEAR and the Med channels don't exist in Canada and certainly not in Ontario.

The system works exactly as Exkalibur described.

 

[acurayyz]

And then, no matter how desperate the situation is or how well the crew sends the patient's info, or how excited they may sound - nine times out of ten an annoyed sounding nurse at the hospital will whine, "Roger, we will recieve you at triage."

The most common things I hear are "Southlake out" or "See you on arrival". The calls are very basic and are pretty much consist of just "coming on a CTAS 4, 40 y/o female with difficulty breathing, history of cardiac issues, BP is 130 over 90, vitals stable, 100% room air, we'll be there in about 4 minutes".

 

[rc1990]

The most common things I hear are "Southlake out" or "See you on arrival". The calls are very basic and are pretty much consist of just "coming on a CTAS 4, 40 y/o female with difficulty breathing, history of cardiac issues, BP is 130 over 90, vitals stable, 100% room air, we'll be there in about 4 minutes".

Do medics need to give a report to the receiving hospital only when the pt's condition is life threatening or it's left to the paramedics' discretion to give a report or not?

 

[EJB]

Wirelessly posted (LG-GR500FD/V10a Teleca/Q7.1 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 UP.Link/6.5.1.0.0)

The last time I was in a ER I saw the "Bat phone" at Mc Master ER. I dont know technically the dispatchers do it but it is done hundreds of times a day. Sometimes the patches show up as the hospital TG & sometimes as whatever TG it should be: in Halton I will hear calls to Joe Brant's talkgroup 36304? Or on Mississauga CACC T3

 

[VE3JSO]

yes medics have to give a report to the hospital for ctas1-5 so the ER staff knows and can advice the medics if there is an off load delay or not

 

[EJB]

Do medics need to give a report to the receiving hospital only when the pt's condition is life threatening or it's left to the paramedics' discretion to give a report or not?

It seems that each CACC has its own rules regarding patches.
Miss CACCA or at least Halton usually does CTAS 2's., same as Hamilton.
Niagara is different, sometimes you hear a few CTAS 3's.
This might be the same in Georgian and Hamilton Simcoe.

I dont think Toronto does many patches, I used to hear urged Medcoms on 25936 from time to time but I dontmonitor it much, a lot are done rpbably my C phones these days.

The Air Ambulance used to be fun to listen to. I would be able to hear what was going on to Sunnybrooke or St. Mikes, sometimes the Air Amublances were taking critical patients from 1,000's of Km's with a lot of personal info and a lot of jargon and chatter between crew and Doctor.
Sadly, they went over to the dark side Sat phones earlier this century.

 

[exkalibur]

Toronto doesn't patch anymore. Sometimes they'll speak to a Base Hospital physician via the radio, but that's pretty rare. More often than not, they'll just give the dispatcher an update who will then phone it into the ER.

 

[acurayyz]

Thanks for the responses, my question was definitely answered. Now I am getting confused about what the purpose is for a run number? The dispatcher always mentions something like "run number 539385140840494804" (lol). What is the purpose of this number?

 

[exkalibur]

It's a number they need to write on their ACR (Ambulance Call Report).

Think of this as a serial number. Each EMS call in Ontario gets a different Run Number.

 

[Gator596]

Run Numbers

When you hear them ask for it, it is very often so they can give the run number to the police for their notes and reports if the incident involved them too.

 

[acurayyz]

disregard..i found the answer to my question.

 

[dkpurcell]

And the answer is??

 

[VE3JSO]

i was in the sarnia hospital the other day when the nurses was talking to ems through the patch what they do is the cacc patches the ems crew to a special phone and the hospital puts them on speaker and takes down the info like were comming in 3and3 the complaint and vitals