Blog

Drowning in Data, Thirsting for Knowledge

The benefits of real-time & near-real-time feedback As featured in the JEMS Data Supplement, FirstWatch Founder & President Todd Stout and John Tobin, alarm room captain for the Mesa Fire Department and lead educator with the University of Arizona's EPIC project, discuss how taking advantage of real-time feedback from today's modern monitor/defibrillators can improve provider and overall system performance. Read the Article.

Webinar Features EMS Compass Call for Measures

We wanted to make you aware of an important national initiative, EMS Compass, one of the largest ever conducted by national Office of EMS, bringing together more than 50 experts in EMS and the science of performance management. In fact, two of them include former FirstWatch Medical Director Alex Garza, MD, Medical Director, and Debbie Gilligan, Product Strategist. Dr. Garza is a featured speaker in a webinar on the initiative, to be held Wed. May 13 at 2:00 pm EST. You...

EMS and Medical Surge: Essential Legal Issues Webinar

Members of our FirstWatch team were invited to attend an upcoming webinar on EMS and Medical Essential Legal Issues. As this is an important topic for our industry, we thought many of our customers might find this webinar useful and wanted to share it with you. Please find details and login information for the upcoming webinar below: To facilitate the sharing of key research and analysis on the legal issues impacting emergency medical services (EMS) providers during medical surge or public...

FirstWatch Steps Up to Help Fire Departments with Real-time Fire Intelligence

In the last week we have received many urgent requests for FirstWatch information & potential assistance from Fire Departments across the US. These departments have reached out because they were subscribers to a SaaS fire department dashboard system called VineLight, which shut down their subscriber site with a few hours’ notice. While VineLight was not a real-time system like FirstWatch, these departments counted on the information it provided, and the sudden loss of that information could have negative impacts for the departments...

Webinar – Make the Most of Your TriTech CAD Data with FirstWatch

TriTech and FirstWatch have been business partners for more than a decade since their first interface integration in 2001. With over 50 shared customers across the U.S. & Canada, we brought together common customers to share with you how to get the most from your TriTech CAD data and how it can be integrated with FirstWatch to create powerful, actionable information... in near real-time at your fingertips. Hear best practices from three FirstWatch/TriTech users on how to best optimize the information...

CDC Grant Opportunity – Ebola Preparedness and Response Activities

The CDC is awarding a total of $145 million in supplemental funding to the current 62 Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) cooperative agreement awardees to support accelerated Ebola public health preparedness planning and response. The Ebola supplemental funding budget period and project period are 18 months: April 1, 2015,through September 30, 2016. This funding is intended to support the nation’s public health system and to assure readiness and response capability to respond effectively to Ebola virus disease (EVD) within the community. Funds are intended...

Debbie Gilligan to Chair Technology Developers Group for NASEMSO National EMS Performance Measures Project

We're so very proud to have our Product Strategist, Debbie Gilligan, as the chair of the Technology Developers Group for the National Association of State EMS Officials new national EMS performance measures project. Debbie will be helping to ensure that the benchmarks established can actually be measured using the electronic patient records systems currently available. Read the Article

FirstWatch Mobile App Featured by JEMS

The Journal of Emergency Medicine Services (JEMS) recently featured our Mobile App for iOS and Android devices. With 24-7-365 access to your data, these Apps allows you to monitor in near real-time your public safety and public health performance, operational and clinical compliance data, all at your finger-tips.

ISDS Webinar – EMS & Ebola

The 2014 Ebola epidemic is the largest in history, affecting multiple countries in West Africa and beyond. EMS providers have to be prepared to treat or transport suspected or known Ebola patients. Join FirstWatch President and long-time advocate for the value of EMS data for public health surveillance, Todd Stout and former Chief Medical Officer for the US Department of Homeland Security, Alex Garza, MD, MPH as they discuss how EMS services in the USA and Canada responded to the...

FirstWatch Mobile App 2014 EMS World Innovation Award Winner

Did you know that the FirstWatch mobile App for iOS and Android was chosen as one of EMS World's top twenty Innovations of 2014? Out of a very competitive field of over 90 entries this year, our App was chosen to be recognized! Our mobile app is the first of its kind that allows EMS teams to monitor, analyze and display user-defined criteria from CAD, ePCR, ProQA, RMS or even Hospital ED data systems.

Early Indications from CDC Point to Bad Flu Season

Download PDF  Predictions and early indications from the CDC point to a bad influenza season. There are a couple of reasons why they are worried about this year being particularly challenging. The predominant strain circulating this year is Influenza A - H3N2, a strain that is not included in this year’s trivalent influenza vaccine. To learn what this means for EMS, download the PDF.

Wrap-Up: Ebola International Webinar Discussion

We recognize that Ebola is still an issue across the world, however it seems to be generally contained to the few suffering countries for now. As a result, we held our last webinar Thursday, January 8th which included a summary of our previous sessions, discussion of what we learned from this experience, and review of things that could be improved for similar events going forward. These webinars would not have been possible without the support of our participants, guest speakers, moderators...

International Webinar Discussion on Ebola

The eighth webinar held on Thursday, December 18th included featured guest speaker Dr. Ed Racht, Chief Medical Officer at AMR, who discussed their comprehensive approach to transporting Ebola patients in Dallas, TX. The Paramedic Chiefs of Canada continued their weekly international webinar discussion open to any public safety agency led by representatives from our FirstWatch team. These webinars are presented in association with the International Association of EMS Chiefs (IAEMSC), the National EMS Management Association