Cook County is about to gain a significant new amenity: Paramedics will soon be available to help with emergencies. North Shore Hospital Administrator Kimber Wraalstad told the hospital board on February 17 that two paramedics – Sheila Costello and Jeff Denniston, both “emergency medical technician-paramedics” or “EMT-Ps”— have been hired and are expected to begin work sometime this spring. Wraalstad said she is excited about this, and the doctors are, too.
Finding employees available to assist on ambulance calls has been a big challenge for the hospital, occasionally requiring some frantic phone calling before a staff person can be found to accompany a patient on the ride to Duluth. Helicopters are also used, but the weather often makes helicopter transport impossible, Wraalstad said. Getting a paramedic on the road with a patient can be much faster than waiting for a helicopter. “We’re going to be doing a whole lot more ground transports because it really is faster,” she said.
The paramedics will be onsite seven days a week from about noon until 10:30 at night, Wraalstad said. They will be available for transports but will also assist in the emergency room.
Commissioner Jim Johnson was at the meeting, and he said that fixedwing aircraft could also provide emergency transport if the Devil’s Track airport had a 5,000-foot runway, which is in the works with funding available from the Federal Aeronautics Administration (FAA).
Women in labor and/or newborn babies needing emergency transport can be transported by plane but not by helicopter because of lack of space, Wraalstad said. Burn cases would be likely to go directly to the Twin Cities if planes could be used, she added. Air transport would also be helpful when they have multiple traumas to deal with, Bridget Sobieck said.
Wraalstad’s February management report states, “Ms. Costello has been a paramedic for over 20 years with services in North Carolina and Missouri. Mr. Denniston has been an EMT-B [EMT-basic] with Cook County Ambulance since 2002 and obtained some of his paramedic clinicals at the hospital.” Wraalstad told the board that Costello has delivered 14 babies.
Having paramedics on hand is part of an upgrade to the hospital’s ambulance service. The hospital is in the process of becoming licensed to provide Advanced Life Support (ALS) ambulance service.
Care center resident and family survey
Hospital and care center social worker Christy Buetow reported the results of an annual survey of care center residents and family members required by the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
Twenty-five residents were surveyed in 2010 by a company independent of the care center. Residents were asked questions in 12 areas related to things such as comfort, mood, privacy, dignity, autonomy, security, meaningful activity, and food enjoyment. The percentage of North Shore Care Center residents answering positively to yes and no questions in the 12 different categories ranged from 80.89 percent to 97.52 percent. The residents scored higher than the state average in all categories.
When asked what grade they would give the facility overall, 56 percent of the residents gave the facility a B, 32 percent gave it an A, and 12 percent (three residents) did not offer a response.
Buetow said the residents are often cold despite the fact that they keep the heat high, and they are in pain from arthritis despite the fact that it’s “managed” with medication as much as possible. Some residents would like more activities on the weekends, even though they do offer activities on the weekends. The residents like eating together in the dining room, a change made a year ago, Buetow said. They have also assigned staff to the same wings each shift so residents have more consistency in who works with them.
“Coming to the care center is a huge loss for people,” said Buetow, “especially given all the other losses they’ve had.” The staff has been increasing the amount of attention they pay to residents’ moods, she said, and they are on the lookout for symptoms of depression. They do a mental health screening every three months.
Buetow said some visitors have expressed surprise that the facility does not have an odor. “We have a very nice, clean environment,” she said.
The 16 family members who were surveyed were asked to rate the facility on how confident they were that the resident was well cared for, with a rating of 5 being “extremely confident” and a rating of 1 being “not at all confident.” over 81 percent gave the facility a 5, and almost 19 percent gave it a 4. Their answers were all 5s and 4s and in the same percentages to the question of how enthusiastically they would recommend the facility to another family, with 5 being “extremely high” and 1 being “extremely low.”
The census averages around 40. It has a waiting list, but some on that list are not ready to move there yet, Buetow said.
Potential new doctor
Dr. Sandy Stover reported that family practitioner Milan Schmidt, MD, has been working at the clinic and hospital on a trial basis to see if this would be a good fit. He has 20 years experience in the southern part of the state, she said.
UMD medical school residents continue to do rotations at the clinic and hospital. This helps interest students in rural family practice, Stover said, and it also gives the doctors a sense of what is being taught in medical school today.
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