New Cumberland, Pennsylvania — After completing a thorough assessment of the needs for the frontline emergency medical services (EMS) providers in South Central Pennsylvania, the Emergency Health Services Federation (EHSF) recognized bleeding control as an absolute priority, second only to bystander CPR awareness and education.
With this as a priority, the EHSF Regional Medical Director, Dr. Michael J. Reihart, developed a first-of-its-kind partnership between the EHSF and the American Trauma Society Pennsylvania Division to provide matching grant funding through the Templeton Foundation. The partnership funded tourniquets for all active advanced life support providers certified as a paramedic or higher through EMS agencies licensed within the EHSF region.
The initiative supported the distribution of approximately 700 SWAT-T tourniquets, which provides the advanced life support providers an opportunity to easily carry a personal tourniquet for bleeding control resulting in tourniquets being more widely available in the community.
The EHSF intends to continue seeking partnerships in an effort to extend the prevention initiative to their basic life support providers and other public safety personnel. However, at this time, funding resources are not available to extend distribution to this magnitude.
The EHSF encourages providers using a SWAT-T tourniquet to provide feedback to the EHSF office. The EHSF will present the best and challenging utilization at their upcoming EMS Innovations Conference on June 27-28, 2019, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Contact:
Emergency Health Services Federation
Regional EMS Council for South Central Pennsylvania
