Crivitz Rescue: Navigating Our Way To Better Patient Care

Crivitz Rescue Squad, Inc., (CRS) is a volunteer based, non-profit 501c3 emergency medical services (EMS) organization servicing the Crivitz-area community in rural Marinette County, Wisconsin. Around-the-clock emergency medical response coverage is provided by paid, paid on call, and non-paid volunteer staff. Our staff of twenty-three includes one part-time employee who is responsible for various record keeping, maintenance, and general operation activities in addition to duties as an Advanced EMT. Since its creation in 1953 the organization has been owned and operated by its general membership. Crivitz Rescue is a private organization that serves as the primary EMS response for our service area. It is not directly affiliated with municipalities or outside organizations. Crivitz Rescue Squad has recently upgraded its scope of practice to provide a higher level of life support as an Advanced EMT level provider.

CRS operates two ambulances servicing portions of five townships and one entire village distributed over a 198 square mile area. The area served by CRS has a population of approximately 4,682 permanent year-round residents, and during the summer months and deer hunting season, an estimated additional 50,000 tourists and seasonal residents. Within the service area are two schools, three elderly apartment complexes, a nursing home, Lake Noquebay (one of the larger lakes in Wisconsin), hydroelectric dam facilities, and many miles of snowmobile, ATV, and cross-country ski trails. In the next several years the Tommy Thompson Centennial State Park and the Peshtigo River State Forest development projects will be completed, which are expected to draw an additional 100,000 tourists to the area annually. The vast majority of the service area is of a rural and outdoor recreational nature, with small isolated population centers. This area has always been desirable for retirees and recent census information confirms that a significant number of elderly persons reside within our service area. The communities we serve depend upon us one hundred percent, as we are the only emergency medical service provider in our response area.

Crivitz Rescue participates in the state-mandated Wisconsin Ambulance Run Data System, which allows us to document our patient care reports electronically and then transmit that patient care information to the receiving hospital as well as the State of Wisconsin. To best comply with this program CRS has placed a Panasonic Tough Book with Windows XP Tablet Edition on each of our ambulances so that patient care information can be documented immediately at the patient’s side using ImageTrend's Field Bridge application. A computer on-board the ambulance allows us not only to document patient care, but we also have taken advantage of this equipment and carry a number of electronic tools and resources with us such as a database of patient medical information, policies, medical protocols, and HAZMAT resources. Recently we were very pleased to receive Microsoft MapPoint 2009 via TechSoup’s donated technology program. This piece of Microsoft technology integrates with our patient care report system to help our crews quickly navigate to the location of a 9-1-1 call.

Our agency responds to over four hundred and fifty 9-1-1 calls annually. The rural nature of our service area can make it difficult to find the location of an emergency. Microsoft MapPoint enhances the quality and the impact of our service by navigating our ambulance crews to the scene of an emergency as efficiently as possible. The sooner our emergency crews can get to a patient, the quicker we can begin emergency medical care. Arriving at a patient’s side sooner not only provides the patient with some relief that help has arrived, but many medical treatments are more effective if they can be provided as quickly as possible. The quality of the patient care we provide is improved as is the impact we have made in the time of the patient’s need. We have found that even the smallest improvement to our organization can be a major factor when you consider how many patients can be positively affected, especially when time is a critical factor. Microsoft technology plays a role in enhancing our response times and our patient care thereby optimizing our mission delivery. Using Microsoft technology onboard our ambulances simply helps enhance the quality of our services.