EMS care
Medical City Healthcare hospitals in the Greater San Antonio area partner with local EMS providers and fire departments to provide trainings and advanced emergency technologies.
Continuing education (CE) offerings
Medical City Healthcare regularly hosts educational offerings, most at little or no cost to EMS providers. Information about our online classes can be found on Facebook at Medical City Health EMS.
Some courses may be available on site for larger groups at your department or facility. For more information, email our team.
Chest compression system
The LUCAS Device is designed to deliver consistent, uninterrupted compressions during CPR. Several of our hospitals have embraced this technology by utilizing LUCAS devices in the emergency room (ER), intensive care unit (ICU) and cardiac catheterization (cath) labs. Our hospitals partner with EMS to continually evaluate devices used during the resuscitation phase of cardiac arrest.
Read more about the LUCAS Chest Compression System.
Additional resources for chest compression
LUCAS 2 Survivor Story
Earlier this year, Whatcom County Medic One and PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center caregivers worked together to save the life of sudden cardiac arrest victim, Nancy Olson. Mechanical chest compressions played a key role in Nancy's successful outcome. In this video, her caregivers share their experience with the LUCAS 2 Chest Compression System.
EMS partnerships
We aim to improve patient outcomes through collaboration, communication and education with our local emergency medical responders. By participating in outreach educational efforts, Caruth Grant Initiatives, recover audit contractors (RAC) recommendations and guidelines, as well as local process improvement committees, Medical City Healthcare impacts EMS patients and partners at multiple levels of the Emergency Medical Care Continuum.
We participate in quality improvement initiatives across the region, including:
- EMS field blood draws to improve door-to-needle for stroke patients and door-to-reperfusion in STEMI patients
- Online EMS classes with physician case reviews, open to all EMS providers
- STEMI activation from EMS at all of our STEMI facilities
- Stroke team activation from EMS at all of our stroke facilities
- Field antibiotic initiation for sepsis patients
- Participation in health data exchange (HDE), which provides prompt feedback for all EMS agencies who participate
- In-person case reviews and feedback
- Providing educators for conferences and continuing education offerings
Human patient simulator
To better serve EMS partners, we purchased a training ambulance and human patient simulator named Apollo by CAE. The truck is a Frazer mobile intensive care unit (MICU) with the latest and greatest audio and video technology on the market. Apollo is a dynamic training system that can respond to therapies based on a programmed underlying human physiology.
LifeNet System
Medical City Healthcare has installed the LifeNet System in all 16 of its hospitals to receive 12 lead electrocardiograms (EKGs) from the EMS crews in the field. This system has helped to reduce door-to-reperfusion times on ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients.
Therapeutic temperature management
Medical City Healthcare has rolled out a hypothermia program at all 16 of our facilities. The protocol includes cooling the post-arrest patient from the field to the ER and onto the ICU without disrupting continuity of care.
Each hospital has a temperature management system in the ER and ICU. The machines use a pad system that covers 40% of the body surface area with pads placed in the axilla and groin to achieve and maintain a target temperature.
Hypothermia therapy, which includes CPR and defibrillation, now has a Class I recommendation from the American Heart Association.
Virtual private network (VPN) and facesheet process
Medical City Healthcare has granted access for fire and EMS billing agencies to its Meditech clinical system to retrieve patient facesheet data for billing purposes. Hospitals strive to achieve a 96-hour turnaround time from patient arrival to posting. What started one department's need has become a nationwide best practice.
For additional information about facesheet data, please email our team.