MED Channel Question

[scanguy]

I'm located in Northern New Jersey; I've been scanning the "MED" channels, CH1 : 463.000 hospitals, 468.00 paramedics thru CH8 463.175 hospitals, 468.175 paramedics for quite a while and haven't picked up any activity. This seems strange to me in that I would think there would be at least some activity. Anyone have a similar experience? Perhaps I'm scanning the wrong frequencies. Any advice would be appreciated.
I also posted this on the NJ in case it happens to be a local issue.

 

[Mozilla]

Med Channels

With many systems there are usually 1-2 other channels that are used to actually tone out and dispatch Med units and also assign them a Med channel. Try 462.950 or 462.975

 

[scanguy]

Mozilla,
Thanks for the info.
I do have those frequencies programmed in & do hear dispatch info on them. Also on freq's like 155.175, 155.280etc.

I'm trying to be able to hear the conversations of the paramedics in addition to the dispatch info. That's where I'm stuck.
Thanks again.

 

[AngelFire91]

The Med channels are used to let hospitals know what is comming in on the ambulances. Example: "Memorial this is Medic 22, we are enroute to your facility with a 65 year old male, woke up this morning with slight chest pain, look on the monitor and blah blah blah..." Not every place uses the Med channels though, they are there and will be monitored by hospitals but in the case of around where I'm from we have our med channels on the Trunked system so everybody uses those instead, so you won't hear anything on the UHF Med's. Maybe every once and a while when a transport from a long ways away comes in and they don't have access to our trunked system.

Also a lot of Ambulances are starting to use cell phones to make the calls into the hospital, I know some places in California and Texas are going to this.

Just a thought why you might not hear anything.

Thanks,
Kevin

 

[SAR923]

That's my guess - cell phones. In northern California, there's been about a 95% drop in the use of the MED channels. The new federal HIPAA regulations have everyone paranoid about patient privacy and cell phones generally work better than our old UHF system.

 

[b7spectra]

Also, in many area's, the frequencies (Med 1-8) are usually simplex, not repeater, so you may not be able to hear the mobile units (Hospitals are on the 463.XXXX & the Ambulance xmit's on the 468.XXXX). Same with the VHF frequencies as well. And don't forget, in a TRS area, look for a med channel there (i.e. in Atlanta, Grady Hospital uses both Med 1 as well as 3 different TRS channels).

 

[scanguy]

Guys,

Makes more sense to me now why they have been "dead" so to speak.
Thanks for the info.

 

[Ben6308]

Exactly. Most of the small departments around here in South Central Texas are using Cell Phones. Basically, they don't have to worry about HIPAA (as much), and they are a lot cheaper basically. Rather than working with the hundreds of hospitals around here, and getting everyone compatable radios, it's cheaper to get each ambulance a cell phone. Every Emergency Dept has a telephone, so it's much easier.

However, San Antonio Fire still uses the radio I believe...because we have the lovely Digital EDACS with ESK system, so they don't worry about it. Don't quote me on that, but I'm pretty sure they still use the radio.

 

[loumaag]

Without going into a rehash of all above, and considering that this is to be considered as "in general", there is no HIPAA Privacy Rule violation by using radio communication to either be dispatched on a medical call or to transmit patient medical information, providing reasonable effort is used to not identify the individual. Here are a couple of opinions on this issue:
http://www.emergencydispatch.org/JOURNAL/articles/HipAAsu03.html
and
http://research.hsc.unt.edu/HIPAA.pdf

 

[HowD]

Just a comment

loumaag:

What is interesting these days is that it is so easy to do a reverse-address lookup. (No different from years past, except that now it's so accessible.)

I guess a non-published number, or maybe an alias, is the way to go. :roll:

 

[loumaag]

Re: Just a comment

loumaag:

What is interesting these days is that it is so easy to do a reverse-address lookup. (No different from years past, except that now it's so accessible.)

I guess a non-published number, or maybe an alias, is the way to go. :roll:

Well, whereas your point about reverse address lookups is true, how does that impact the Privacy Rule? As a matter of fact, the Privacy Rule does not even prevent the use of a name over the air, if it is necessary. Did you actually read either of those documents I refered to?

 

[CSL126]

I live in Tuscaloosa, Alabama... they use cellphones here also.

 

[HowD]

My point simply was that just an address is possibly enough to identify a name.