TRAUMA REGIONAL ADVISORY COUNCIL
1409N. Stuart Place Road, Suite D
Harlingen, Texas78552
PHONE: 956-364-2022 FAX: 956-364-2662 EMAIL:
Minutes
GENERAL MEMBERSHIP
Friday, May 30, 2014
9:00 AM- Finance Meeting
10:00 AM – Board Meeting
11:00 AM – Subcommittees’
12:00 PM – General Membership
Willacy County EMS
1.Call to Order – 12:00 PM Deborah Meeks
2. Welcome of New Members and Guests
Deborah Meeks introduced Elmo Lopez from McAllen Medical Center and then new Board member.
3.Review of Previous Minutes – February 28, 2014
Frank Torres made a motion to approve the minutes with corrections, seconded by Rudy Garza. Motion
passed.
4. Board Report:
A. Board Meeting SummaryDeborah Meeks
Deborah Meeks mentioned that Jeremy Bradshaw resigned and the ascending of the Vice -Chair to the Chair was approved by the Board. Deborah Meeks is the new Chair for the organization. Noel Garcia was elected to Vice-Chair by majority votes. Noel Garcia will be Vice-Chair for the remaining of the year, Noel Garcia was also Parliamentarian, and will continue dual roles for the remainder of the year. Those two positions will be open for elections the first meeting of 2015.
B. Financial Report Frank Torres
Frank Torres mentioned the symposiums report will be ready by the next General Membership meeting.
5. Staff ReportMatthew Baker
Matthew Baker emphasized the importance of signing in for each entity on the sign in sheets. Matthew informed the attendee’s your signature constitutes your attendance.
6.Sam Vance –Program Manager for EMSC State Partnership
EMS for Children Program
Sam Vance mentioned the EMS Children’s Program is a Federal Funding Program,it is the only federal program focused on improving on the quality of Pediatric Emergency Care. The mission is to reduce childhood morbidity and mortalitycaused by severe illness or trauma.
For more information on EMS for Children please visit:
7.HPP Report – Fidel Calvillo
Fidel Calvillo mentioned HPPapproving maxi-respirators for each facility to include the EMS providers. There will be two respirators per agency. They have gotten approval to purchase evacuation items for hospitals and nursing homes. Fidel Calvillo has been working with hospital on triage tags for EMS providers and would like to implement a monthly training for EMS.
8.TETAF Update – Roy Tamayo
Roy Tamayo mentioned thediscussion at TETAF was on the EMS funding.
9.W.A.R. (Within Arm’s Reach) Presentation – Connie Manley
Connie Manley mentioned the majority of falls are from ages five and under, the falls were from sofas, cribs, adult beds, changingtables and chairsall due to a distracted caregiver. Looking at CT scans on pediatric patient some babies had repeated scans due to the fall.
Connie Manley has been working on a campaign calledW.A.R (Within Arm’s Reach) they are going to teach the caregiver to be within arm’s reach of the child. TheW.A.R campaign is simple, it can be remembered easily, and has a strong meaning; it’s understandable and easy to teach.
10. Subcommittee Reports– Agendas
- Pre-hospital Disaster Communication Committee/EMTF (Emergency Medical Task Force) – Noel Garcia/ Rudy Garza
Noel Garcia mentioned EMS providers need to be made aware of patients’ needs when being transferred from one facility to another. The entity doing the transfer needs to be straight forward and mention if they are not capable of handling the transferring and allow the hospital to seek another agency.
Noel Garcia mentioned Matthew Baker informed them they need to finalize a disaster plan and work on the communication part of it. A meeting has been scheduled for July 17th at McAllen fire department at 1:00pm.
Pre-hospital will also have a meeting to discuss recurring problems transferring patients out of the valley at the check point with people having to take undocumented patients and or a family member riding along with the patient. Delay times have been up to three hours, some cases may be very crucial.
Pre-hospital is going to try to meet with border patrol, hospital, and EMS.
Deborah Meeks mentioned she would be interested sitting in this conversation and suggested Noel Garcia coordinate with Mathew Baker, hospitals and EMS entities that are interested in having that conversation and bring a committee together in coordination with the federal agencies. Deborah Meeks would like Noemi Sanchez attend also.
- Injury Prevention/Special Population/Education Committee – Rick Diaz / Sal Acevedo
Sal Acevedo mentioned they will be concentrating on auto head injuries and they got approval from the Board for the bumper sticker.
- Quality Assurance/Performance Improvement/Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee – Frank Torres
Did not meet
- South Texas Trauma Coordinators – Connie Manley/Ginger Cunningham
Connie Manley mentioned they will start meeting every two months and have some conference calling.
Their goal is to begin organizing a stress debriefing team within their group and bring on the parties that will make a complete team. Connie has spoken briefly with Matthew Baker about some outreach;Roy Tamayo and Erin Teskey have some opportunity to bring in some training to get trained on it. This will be a great asset for the region and we want to focus on some education every time we meet to help increase our knowledge that will help us implement this program.
- Allied Health Committee – Emily Reyes / Mario Montez
Emily Reyes mentioned working on the topic and speakers for the 18th Annual Trauma Symposium. Their next meeting will be June 6th.
- Texas Department of State Health Services – Noemi Sanchez
Noemi Sanchez mentioned LPG application grants are not yet posted they has been as delay since HHSC took over. Presently we are down to 61 EMS county providers and there will be a few more closing down due to not being able to meet the line of credit. Reminder to all providers any changes pleaseto your company need to revisit your 15711 and read on all the changes on the amount of days you need to notify the department.
- Stroke Committee –Erlinda Abantao/Kennetha Foster
Did not meet
- Bylaw Committee –Frank Torres
Did not meet
- Medical Oversight Committee – Dr.Syed Hassan
Did not meet
- Compliance Committee – Rene Perez
Did not meet
- Cardiac Committee – Mike Dillman / Pete Garcia
Mike Dillman mentioned finalizing a regional dashboard project that was started in February. In April theyfinalized the inclusion criteria for the dashboard,they need a few more tweaks and arecovery letter for it to be submitted to the TRAC for Board approval and for submission on to the hospitals and EMS.
Mike Dillman mentioned Participation is still need from hospitals with CPI capability and hospital that don’t have it they need to see your challenges on your region, that is a top goal for the cardiac committee andthat’s reason for the dashboard is to identify the weakness and areas we can approve on in the region.
- Fundraising Committee – Cindy Ramon
Did not meet
11. Old Business
No old business
12.New Business
Discussion on state reporting document for Stroke and STEMI
Deborah Meeks stated one goal of our organization this year was to develop a regional registry that we could evaluate what we do in our region. The trauma coordinators report on the state website and the information we get from the state is a state summary. In our region we have different challenges so we thought we had enough information to look at what we need in our region and concentrate our efforts on that area. Cardiac, Stroke and Trauma committees were charged at the first meeting this year to come up with a dashboard. What kind of data do you think will be useful and evaluating how we do for these patients.
Deborah Meeks mentioned the state had the same idea; they wanted to expand the trauma to include stroke and cardiac. They have submitted their dashboard with about thirteen elements for both. The state recognizes this is a new initiative and we may not have all the resources to collect all the data they are asking for. There is the ability to state “we cannot report on this” on the report.
Matthew Baker stated it is critical the report we will be sending you to get filled out and returned to the RAC. If you don’t have input or data, you don’t have resources available to find that information, you must send that back to us so we can turn that over to the state. If you can’t report anything still send that information over to us so it can count. It’s ok to state we cannot report on this.
Discussion on Trauma Registry Data
Matthew Baker mentioned the state trauma registry will no longer allow any paper affidavits to be produced for trauma runs as of January 1, 2016. If you need any help with the trauma registry contact Christi Masker at .
Deborah Meeks went over the data below sent by Joe Schneider the state EMS director.
2013
1)2,463,340 EMS runs
2)Breakdown by time component
- Day: 6,748.88 runs per day
- Hour: 281.20 runs per hour
- Minute: 4.69 runs per minute
- Second: 0.08 runs per second
- An EMS run happens every 12.5 seconds in the State of Texas
3)The State of Texas is transported every 10.74 years (2013 population estimate = 26,448,193; Census data)
4)Time of Day
- 8am until 4pm: 46.3%
- 4pm until Midnight: 31.5%
- Midnight until 8am: 22.2%
2012
1)2,518,918 EMS runs
2)Breakdown by time component
- Day: 6,901.15 runs per day
- Hour: 287.55 runs per hour
- Minute: 4.79 runs per minute
- Second: 0.08 runs per second
- An EMS run happens every 12.5 seconds in the State of Texas
3)The State of Texas is transported every 10.35 years (2012 population estimate = 26,060,796; Census data)
4)Time of Day
- 8am until 4pm: 44.2%
- 4pm until Midnight: 35.5%
- Midnight until 8am: 20.3%
13. Next Meeting Date
September 5, 2014 at Harlingen Medical Center
14. Adjournment
There being no further business the meeting was adjourned.