Armstrong Industries
www.armstrongmedical.com

Wingspan Marketing
www.wingspanmarketing.com

9/27-9/30/06
EMS Expo, Las Vegas

• Provide high quality, low cost products that meet users’ needs.
• Provide comprehensive instructor ancillaries so that our instructors can continue to choose among various tools and methods to deliver course content.
• Use technology to our advantage, including placing instructor lessons plans that can be edited and printed, on the new Instructor Toolkit CDs.
• Save ECSI Education Centers money on instructor training.
• Provide the highest quality and most comprehensive list of online education programs to help change the way courses can be offered in your communities.
• Provide tools that help increase your business opportunities.
• Expand our program offerings to meet newly identified needs.
• Secure all necessary regulatory approvals for programs
• Provide one-stop shopping for all your program needs.
• Make our programs administratively friendly.

Please take advantage of these revised programs and the incredible savings we are offering! Here are some key upcoming dates for the publication of select ECSI revised products:

• BLAST CD-ROM = September 15, 2006
• Good Samaritan, Fifth Edition = September 1, 2006
• First Aid Guide, Fifth Edition = September 1, 2006
• Professional Rescuer CPR, Third Edition Instructor's ToolKit CD-ROM = September 15, 2006
• First Responder, Fourth Edition Instructor's ToolKit CD-ROM = September 22, 2006
• First Responder, Fourth Edition Student Workbook = November 15, 2006
• First Responder, Fourth Edition Instructor's Manual on CD-ROM = September 30, 2006

Top

Special Feature
Ask Us About EmergencyCourses.com

Have you ever wondered how you can increase your business faster and more efficiently? Are you looking for ways to utilize technology to easily register and track students in your courses? Are you trying to increase awareness of your course offerings and drive more students to your courses? If you answered, “Yes” to any of these questions, you need to take a look at our newest offering for ECSI Education Centers and Instructors at www.Emergencycourses.com.

In one location you can list ANY type of course that you are providing, including those in emergency care, nursing, EMS, fire, safety, and rescue. You can list your course names, descriptions, prices, dates, locations, instructors, and number of available seats.Your customers will read the course information, select the course that fits their needs, and then pay online. The customer will be notified that a standard $5.00 processing fee is added to the posted price for the course, which e-commerce customers are used to paying.

Every time a customer registers, you will receive an email notifying you of a new registrant. As a user of the service, you will have 24/7 access to your courses and will be able to instantly view your course lists and how fast they are filling up. You can close off courses or add more seats any time. You have 100% control!

You will receive a monthly check from EmergencyCourses.com for all the customers who registered online for your courses during that month. You can easily reconcile this with the email notices that you will receive against the detailed statement that comes with your check.

What is the cost to you for this service? Just $1 registers your Education Center and enables you to use this service. Take advantage of this offer to now have your own personal e-commerce capability.

As with all e-commerce transactions, a processing fee is required. EmergencyCourses.com keeps only 5% of your monthly course registration fees in order to process the credit card transactions. This is far less than you would pay to build your own web site that could provide e-commerce. Plus, you would have to do all the work!

Emergencycourses.com is advertising on all search engines. In the near future, we believe that this site will revolutionize the way that internet users search for courses, just like Priceline and Travelocity did for travelers.

This service works great for everyone, regardless of whether or not you have your own web site. Ride the wave of the future in course registration and tracking. Click here to sign up today as an Education Center and put our technology to work for you. If you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask us anything about Emergencycourses.com.

“I began my career with the Orlando Fire Department in 1971,” says Charles Bracewell. “I received my EMT training a year later and Paramedic training 2 years later. I have been teaching CPR and First Aid since the mid ‘70’s, and have trained hundreds of people from all walks of life. Thirty-five years later, I am still providing prehospital care and training. In that time I’ve used curriculum from several organizations, but predominately the American Heart Association. My involvement in EMS has given me the opportunity to observe the effectiveness of patient care initiated before our arrival. The public’s knowledge of CPR and First Aid can and does make a difference.”

“There are always those exceptional incidents that stand out as memorable. One of those incidents for me was a 2-year-old girl found at the bottom of a swimming pool. The parents had no CPR training and no attempts at resuscitation were made before our arrival. Fortunately, our response time was less than 3 minutes. Upon arrival, the little girl was not breathing and pulseless. CPR and ALS were initiated immediately. We were successful in obtaining ROSC on the scene and she was making attempts at respirations on the way to the hospital. She recovered fully with no brain damage, which is not the usual outcome for these incidents.”

“Even though it has been my desire to continue teaching CPR and First Aid, I have been somewhat discouraged and disappointed due to the increasing difficulties imposed by the AHA regarding training center requirements, affiliating with a training center, maintaining training center status, and the increased costs of materials.”

“I first became aware of ECSI at the ECCU Conference in Orlando this year. The more I learn about ECSI, the more I like it. The quality of the materials, the support from the staff, and the user-friendly curriculum and programs make this is the best program I have seen so far. It is like a breath of fresh air.”

Top

Reminders

Webcast Reminder
If you have not already done so, please watch the Instructor Update Webcast on the member web site to update yourself and other instructors on the 2005 ILCOR Guidelines. The web site provides valuable information on not only the course content, but also on the newly released student and instructor materials. To view the webcast, please visit the ECSI home page at www.ecsinstitute.org and click on the little TV set.

Top

PedFacts Update

Don't forget that ECSI offers a course specifically designed to meet the needs of pediatric caregivers. Course topics include breathing difficulty; controlling bleeding and infection; heat- and cold-related emergencies; and oral injuries. There is also an entire chapter devoted to injury prevention. This official American Academy of Pediatrics course also has an instructor resource manual and DVD. The instructor resource manual includes helpful tips and guidelines for teaching a PedFACTs course; skill station strategies and activities; and administrative information and forms. For more course information, please visit www.pedfactsonline.com.

• Who are your target markets?
• What are your services or products?
• What is your pricing?
• What sets you apart from your competition?
• How will you get yourself in front of your prospective clients?

• Your product or service
• Your geographic marketing area - neighborhood, regional or national
• Your competition
• How you differ from the competition - what makes you special
• Your price
• The competition's promotion methods
• Your promotion methods
• Your distribution methods or business location

• Your current customer base: age, gender, income, neighborhood
• How your customers learn about your product or service - advertising, direct mail, word of mouth, Yellow Pages
• Patterns or habits your customers and potential customers share - where they shop, what they read, watch, listen to
• Qualities your customers value most about your product or service - selection, convenience, service, reliability, availability, affordability
• Qualities your customers like least about your product or service - can they be adjusted to serve your customers better?
• Prospective customers whom you aren't currently reaching

• Previous marketing methods you have used to communicate to your customers
• Methods that have been most effective
• Cost compared to sales
• Cost per customer
• Possible future marketing methods to attract new customers
• Percentage of profits you can allocate to your marketing campaign
• Marketing tools you can implement within your budget - newspaper, magazine or Yellow Pages advertising; radio or television advertising; direct mail; telemarketing; public relations activities such as community involvement, sponsorship or press releases
• Methods of testing your marketing ideas
• Methods for measuring results of your marketing campaign
• The final component in your marketing plan should be your overall promotional objectives: to communicate your message, create an awareness of your product or service, motivate customers to buy and increase sales, or other specific targets. Objectives make it easier to design an effective campaign and help you keep that campaign on the right track. Once you have defined your objectives, it is easier to choose the method that will be most effective.

Top

Medical Journal Reviews
Alton Thygerson

The Importance of Evidence-Based Disaster Planning

Assumptions or myths about disaster and emergency response include:

1. Dispatchers will hear of the disaster and send emergency response units to the scene. Early in a disaster, it is not always clear who at the scene is in charge and can be contacted about the need for assistance. Emergency responders may first hear of a disaster from police scanners or the news media before they are informed by official sources. Frequently, initial reports are greatly dramatized and exaggerated. For emergency responders, getting accurate, official information on the extent of the disaster and the need for help may be difficult at first.

2. Trained emergency personnel will carry out field search and rescue. Studies of search and rescue in disasters have shown that a substantial proportion of, if not most, search and rescue is carried out by untrained survivors.

3. Trained emergency medical services personnel will carry out triage, provide first aid or stabilizing medical care, and—if necessary—decontaminate casualties before patient transport. Although disaster plans may call for casualties to be triaged and given lifesaving first aid in the field, survivors often bypass field first aid and triage efforts because they may not know that field first aid or triage stations exist, much less where they are.

4. Casualties will be transported to hospitals by ambulance. For many untrained persons who become involved in search and rescue at a disaster site, the “best emergency care” is seen as transport to the closest hospital as quickly as possible. If ambulances are not promptly available, survivors do not tend to wait for their arrival but will use the most expedient means to transport the casualties.

5. Casualties will be transported to hospitals appropriate for their needs and in such a manner that no hospital receives a disproportionate number of patients. The ideals for civilian disaster medical care are based on the military precepts of triage (doing the greatest good for the greatest number of casualties). This implies making the best use of available medical resources. For example, casualties with sprained ankles and minor lacerations should not be sent to trauma centers or burn centers. Also, casualties should be distributed among the hospitals so that no one hospital is disproportionately overloaded and so that patient needs are matched with hospital capabilities. However, it is often challenging in disasters to make best use of the available medical resources. When survivors independently make what they perceive are rational decisions—to transport victims to the closest hospital—the decisions may result in hospitals near the scene receiving the bulk of the patients, whereas hospitals farther away await casualties who never arrive.

6. Authorities at the scene will ensure that area hospitals are promptly notified of the disaster and the numbers, types, and severities of casualties to be transported to them. To the extent that hospitals can be forewarned before casualty arrival, they can better organize the resources necessary to treat the casualties. The types of information needed by hospitals include the nature and scope of the disaster; the numbers, types, and severities of injuries or illnesses; and the estimated time of victim arrival. However, the Disaster Research Center Studies show that most often the first notification of hospitals was not from authorities at the scene, but from the first arriving casualties or ambulances or the news media.

7. The most serious casualties will be the first to be transported to hospitals. The Disaster Research Center Study observed what one might call “reverse-triage,” with the least serious casualties tending to arrive first. Similar observations were reported in the 1989 San Francisco earthquake and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake. This could be because the more serious casualties were more likely to be trapped in the rubble, requiring more sophisticated search and rescue efforts to extricate them. Also, the least serious casualties are often more able to extricate and transport themselves.

Source: Annals of Emergency Medicine, January 2006

Lawnmower Injuries in the United States: 1996 to 2004

Debris from under the mower hitting a body part or entering the eye was the most common mechanism for lawnmower injury. The second most common mechanism of injury was nonspecific pain onset after the ordinary operation of the mower. Fracture of 1 or more phalanges of the foot was the most common diagnosis among lawnmower injury hospitalizations, followed by traumatic amputation of the toe.
Given the high incidence of projectile-related injuries, improved protective apparel and eyewear could lower the rate of injury. The increasing trend of lawnmower injuries in the United States suggests that more must be done to prevent lawnmower injuries.

Source: Annals of Emergency Medicine, June 2006