Compliance QuickNotes
©
Basic Life Support
Preparing your team for a Patient Emergency Professional Management Associates, Inc
CURRENT LISTINGS Downtown Seattle Perio Practice Well-established practice Beautiful facility Over $1 million in collections
Seattle General Practice · Lake City Great location Three operatories Good starter practice New marketing strategies
We’re looking for Associates for the greater Seattle area. Call us today! Ortho Space for Rent 1-2 days a week Potential for future ownership
Concerned About Fraud? We can help review your records in a discrete manner. Call for a free list of items to help thwart embezzlement in your office.
Linnell Isoshima Steven Kanzaki 1206 Olympic Avenue Edmonds, WA 98020 Pager: (206) 399-0242 Fax: (425) 712-1859
Dan Wells Most Basic Life Support training courses follow a time honored sequential format. The traditional BLS class is a bit like a flight simulator. Your instructor explains the changes since your last BLS course then demonstrates, in sequence, the steps for effective CPR, AED and emergency oxygen use. Some BLS courses also require that you watch instructive video on the proper sequences. Your instructor then observes you practicing the skills in the proper sequence with a mannequin. If you perform the tasks properly you are issued a BLS card. As you put your new card in your purse or wallet you may be secretly hoping you’ll not be called upon to use the skills you just practiced. And the reality is that when you have a real world patient emergency, what you learned in the “flight simulator” can leave you unprepared. The sequential approach might be an effective way to conduct a BLS course but a simultaneous application of all the elements is required to respond effectively to a real patient emergency. Imagine a more comprehensive BLS course that measures your true level of preparedness with simulated emergencies in your dental clinic. The Harris Biomedical “Team Response to a Dental Patient Emergency” BLS course is exactly that. Our instructor will present the required BLS course, demonstrating proper techniques and guiding your staff members through a patient emergency as a team. In the final phase of the course, our instructor becomes the compromised patient in your dental chair. Your staff must use your equipment and function as a team to save the instructor, including CPR, using an AED and ventilating with oxygen and a bag valve mask. This “patient emergency drill” is timed with a stop watch by the instructor and is designed to reveal any inefficiency in your current emergency response procedures, which can then be corrected. By practicing as a team in your clinic with your equipment, you improve your emergency response and increase the likelihood of a positive outcome should a patient become compromised. We recommend that you perform a “patient emergency drill” at least monthly in your office to ensure that your staff remains prepared to function efficiently as a team in an emergency. You’re required by Washington State Department of Health to have certain equipment, training and drugs to respond to a patient emergency and sustain the patient until EMS arrives. Most dental offices are in compliance with these requirements but preparing your staff to use them and function as a team requires more comprehensive training. Consider Harris Biomedical’s “Team Response to a Dental Patient Emergency” BLS course. 5 2 · th e wsda ne w s · issue 6, may · 2013 · www.wsda.org