Oakland County Hospitals

[Jimmy252]

Currently, all EMS -> Hospital traffic is on the old Oakland TRS. I notice that a few hospitals are now listed on the OpenSky system.

Does anyone know how EMS are going to contact hospitals now in Oakland County? Are all ambulance going to use OpenSky for hospital traffic?

What ever happened to that nationwide set of frequencies reserved for Hospitals and ambulances? The UHF Ultra High Band, Med-1 through Med-34 I believe. Is that going to be used now?

 

[RayAir]

Currently, all EMS -> Hospital traffic is on the old Oakland TRS. I notice that a few hospitals are now listed on the OpenSky system.

Does anyone know how EMS are going to contact hospitals now in Oakland County? Are all ambulance going to use OpenSky for hospital traffic?

What ever happened to that nationwide set of frequencies reserved for Hospitals and ambulances? The UHF Ultra High Band, Med-1 through Med-34 I believe. Is that going to be used now?

I don't know. Some EMS is still heard on the old TRS. Some EMS is also on UHF still, 424.7875 (LTR I.D: 001101) comes to mind. I believe that is STAR EMS. Alliance still dispatches on 867.2125 although I don't know if this is a primary channel for them.

Supposedly, everything is supposed to go to OpenSky.

 

[Jimmy252]

I don't know. Some EMS is still heard on the old TRS. Some EMS is also on UHF still, 424.7875 (LTR I.D: 001101) comes to mind. I believe that is STAR EMS. Alliance still dispatches on 867.2125 although I don't know if this is a primary channel for them.

Supposedly, everything is supposed to go to OpenSky.

Im talking more about the EMS to Hospital transmission, from ambulance to ER regarding patient information. On the old trs, its most of the 10XXX talkgroups. I know the Detroit hospitals (DRH, Henry Ford, Grace) have those contact channels on the MPSCS. Im just curious if Oakland county will follow suit as far as hospitals go, or go with the nationwide designated frequencies in the 463.xxxx MHz range that is to be implemented across north america supposedly.

 

[RadioRon]

According to the State's Medcom Plan

http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdch/MEDCOM_REQUIREMENTS.Sept_2006_174553_7.pdf

All EMS vehicles are to have VHF capability for 155.340 and 155.355. They are also encouraged to have VCALL/VTAC, UCALL/UTAC, or ICALL/ITAC as appropriate for their radio.

Any additional radio system may be used for mobile to hospital commuications as specified by the Medical Control Authority as long as it conforms to the State requirements.

The last i heard was all Oakland County hospitals would have Open Sky, but they will need to maintain at least a VHF on 155.340 for non-Oakland County rigs with incoming patients.

 

[KB8QDM]

Some of the ambulance to hospital comms will go to OpenSky once they get all of the hospitals on line. We've (Star EMS) had the radios out for a few weeks now, but are not using them yet, still using the legacy system. We only have them on ALS rigs (which is all the county requires), they are optional for BLS rigs, but not cost-efficient for us. Hospitals and all ambulances still have to have the VHF HEAR/HERN equipment per state requirements.

Last time I checked, we weren't planning on switching our dispatch system to it, we're staying with our 400MHz LTR system.

 

[gpp10x]

This topic raises a question for me & sorry if this is off topic. With the various radio systems in use how many radios do the hospitals need to have? I'm thinking of hospitals that accept ambulance traffic from the tri-county area. They need to be able to communicate with ambos on OpenSky, MPSCS, VHF or UHF. Just for an example, St. John in Detroit need to communicate with DEMS, Eastpointe or St. Clair Shores from Macomb County, Harper Woods & the Grosse Pointes plus the various private companies which may or may not have access to MPSCS. Are patches being used or do they have 3 or more radios?

 

[KB8QDM]

I would think that hospitals in an area that uses MPSCS (like St John Main) would have talkgroups for both systems if that's possible. I know that some of the Oakland County hospitals have radios for MPSCS, OpenSky, and VHF. Genesys Health Park would have the same kind of setup. Once the OpenSky system goes fully on-line, the legacy system radios will be removed.

The only private services still running rescue calls over on the east side are MedStar and Universal. MedStar uses MPSCS for dispatching, so they already have them. Universal is still on a 400MHz UHF system, but they probably have MPSCS portables to contact the hospitals. Nobody over there is using the old UHF MED channels anymore. I don't know if American Ambulance is still working over there, but they would be in the same situation as Superior, transfers only, where the sending facility should have called in a report to the hospital so no EMS contact should be needed.

The hospitals are supposed to monitor all radio systems, including VHF. In practice, that doesn't really happen too often. Most of the times I've walked by one in a hospital, it's been turned all the way down if it wasn't turned off. Which then sets the staff off with questions like "Why didn't you call?" "Tried the VHF, you didn't answer." "Why didn't you use the 800?" "A)we don't have one, we're a BLS unit, and B), priority 3 notification only is supposed to go over the HEAR." "Why didn't you call by phone?" "Sorry, I don't pay $60 a month out of my pocket to use my cellphone for work related business."

 

[gpp10x]

Thanks for the reply KB8QDM.

 

[freqs]

I would think that hospitals in an area that uses MPSCS (like St John Main) would have talkgroups for both systems if that's possible. I know that some of the Oakland County hospitals have radios for MPSCS, OpenSky, and VHF. Genesys Health Park would have the same kind of setup. Once the OpenSky system goes fully on-line, the legacy system radios will be removed.

The only private services still running rescue calls over on the east side are MedStar and Universal. MedStar uses MPSCS for dispatching, so they already have them. Universal is still on a 400MHz UHF system, but they probably have MPSCS portables to contact the hospitals. Nobody over there is using the old UHF MED channels anymore. I don't know if American Ambulance is still working over there, but they would be in the same situation as Superior, transfers only, where the sending facility should have called in a report to the hospital so no EMS contact should be needed.

The hospitals are supposed to monitor all radio systems, including VHF. In practice, that doesn't really happen too often. Most of the times I've walked by one in a hospital, it's been turned all the way down if it wasn't turned off. Which then sets the staff off with questions like "Why didn't you call?" "Tried the VHF, you didn't answer." "Why didn't you use the 800?" "A)we don't have one, we're a BLS unit, and B), priority 3 notification only is supposed to go over the HEAR." "Why didn't you call by phone?" "Sorry, I don't pay $60 a month out of my pocket to use my cellphone for work related business."

............... Alot of them still use 155.340 to call the E.R in Macomb Co the City of Warren does Univesal as well I hear them all the time call St,John Macomb .Oakland .and Main in Deroit or Bi County those 2 EMS Transport's dont have MPSCS radios .Now the rest of the county are on MPSCS so they use that or 155.340 if they are calling a hospital out of the county like Shelby Twp that is on MPSCS will do if they go to Crittenten or Beumont As far as Universal they use 155.340 for EMS TO E.R but they are dispatched on 423.1250 for runs in the metro area not for E.R calls

 

[RayAir]

............... Alot of them still use 155.340 to call the E.R in Macomb Co the City of Warren does Univesal as well I hear them all the time call St,John Macomb .Oakland .and Main in Deroit or Bi County those 2 EMS Transport's dont have MPSCS radios .Now the rest of the county are on MPSCS so they use that or 155.340 if they are calling a hospital out of the county like Shelby Twp that is on MPSCS will do if they go to Crittenten or Beumont As far as Universal they use 155.340 for EMS TO E.R but they are dispatched on 423.1250 for runs in the metro area not for E.R calls

I have heard calls on 463.100, not sure what EMS service is using it.