RTAC Coordinators Meeting Tuesday December 5, 2006

Agenda Topic

Discussion

Action Steps

RTAC/ Trauma Coordinators Meting

Trauma Registry Workshops

Kelly Jung addressed a number of issues pertaining to the Trauma Registry Workshops:

The Registry Sub-Committee and the Trauma Coordinators have been discussing these workshops at their meetings and have concluded that conducting a survey would be beneficial in focusing the educational content of the workshops on the specific needs of each region. 

When conducting the actual workshop training session, you may use people from within your RTAC, other RTACS, or from the State (Marianne/Debi).  A template was handed out for RTACS to use as a boilerplate for the training sessions, including example scenarios.  This template is not required, but can be used as a helpful tool.

Robert Ramirez, SERTAC, has created a Power-Point for hospital administrators that deals with site reviews.  This has proven very beneficial in his region, especially when some hospitals will not be reviewed for a long time into the future (can be used as reference material when the actual review is nearing).

Two Registry education sessions must be completed by July 1^st! 

If you or others in your RTAC are interested in helping with the survey, or with the actual training sessions, please contact Debi Peters.

Use the resources of your entire RTAC to help accomplish the workshop training sessions requirement… It is not one individuals ‘problem’ to organize and put-on the training session… It is a region’s responsibility.

RTACS can ‘team-up’ on these workshops to accomplish the requirement.

Contact Robert Ramirez, SERTAC, for a copy of the site review Power-Point for hospital admin.

RTAC Coordinators Meeting

Discussion

Action Steps

TOPIC Course

The TOPIC Course date has been finalized for Friday, February 8, 2007.  It will be held at the Sheraton Hotel in Madison.  A ‘save the date’ notification will be sent out in the near future. 

Each RTAC will have ‘11’ number of allowed attendees.  Priority within each RTAC should be given to those with upcoming site reviews.  Smaller RTACS can ‘donate’ spots to larger RTACs if they have vacancies.  This course will be tailored to the level III and IVs.

In the future, we can use some of the material presented in the TOPIC course for our own educational sessions.  This will NOT be a ‘train the trainer,’ rather just a sharing of the information.

Confirm that your hospitals are invited to the TOPIC Course for 2/8/2007.

Donate any vacant TOPIC seats to another RTAC

Hotel Reservations for TOPIC:  Sheraton Hotel in Madison (same hotel as this meeting).  Applying for the State rate at this time, no confirmation of such.

ATLS Course

There will be a mass ATLS course in April/May 2007.  Notify Lynne Sears ASAP of # of MDs in your RTAC that need this training.

Contact Lynne Sears:  lsears@uwhealth.org with number of MDs in your RTAC that need ATLS. (ASAP!)

RTAC/ Trauma Coordinators Meting

HRSA Hospital and RTAC Preparedness

PEPP:  Great reviews received by the NCRTAC (distributed via email to use as marketing tool).

There are many open slots for registration; however this needs to be organized to assure budget coverage for re-imbursement.  The November 30, 2006 deadline has been moved back to April 30, 2007.

Cal Lintz discussed the possibility of RTAC Coordinators becoming PEPP Instructors:  They could teach the courses throughout their RTAC as well as other RTACs.  Many felt this was a theoretically good idea, but too time consuming to be possible.  The geographical distribution of PEPP course locations is poor.  If you know of an instructor that is willing to travel to conduct the PEPP course in remote areas, please notify the other RTACs.

OJA Grant:  2^nd round of interoperability funding just wrapped-up.  Unlike the 1^st round, this one was managed by the Emergency Management officer of each county.  OJA had been overwhelmed in dealing with each EMS, FD, and law enforcement agency in round one.  Unfortunately, money was left unclaimed, again!  Services must be pre-approved to apply for the grant.  A third round of OJA grants will be coming in March/April of 2007, and will again be managed by the Emergency Management officers of each county.

Policy on Patient Tracking:  Not too much to report:  working with UPS to evaluate their software.

Distribute PEPP reviews that were emailed to you by Dennis as a marketing tool to promote the PEPP class.

Notify your RTAC EMS agencies about the new deadline for PEPP registration… Now April 30, 2007

RTAC Coordinators are encouraged to become PEPP Instructors in an effort to maximize the course offerings and course locations throughout the state.

Contact the other RTAC Coordinators if you know of a PEPP Instructor that is willing to travel to remote areas to conduct a PEPP class.

Promote EMS participation in the OJA Grant process within your RTAC to help solve the interoperability issues.

Paul Wittkamp will email pre-approval forms to the RTAC Coordinators:  Distribute these forms to each EMS agency in your region so they will be well prepared to apply for the March/April 2007 round of OJA grants.

RTAC/ Trauma Coordinators Meting

HRSA Hospital and RTAC Preparedness

(Continued)

Audit of Funds:  HRSA is auditing funds supplied to the RTACS.  Dennis needs this info ASAP.  

Billing and Coding Issues:  Dennis provided a handout soliciting input from hospitals and EMS agencies pertaining to potential billing and coding issues.  A 3^rd party agency will be hired to address these issues.

WARDS:  A hospital bridge to WARDS has been purchased (see handout).  Triage Tag number entry field will allow multiple hospitals to track those patients with triage tag numbers entered.

Check with your Fiscal Agents to confirm that they have supplied the needed information to Dennis.

Disperse the handout to all hospitals and EMS agencies in your RTAC and have them respond with any foreseen challenges with the billing/coding system.

Distribute info on WARDS/Hospital bride to the hospital sin your RTAC

Triage Tuesday

Things are going, fast for some RTACs, slow for others.  We are to keep participating in the program until we receive the message from the participants that “we have had enough.”  At that time, we will move on to the next step:  Patient tracking (Summer 2007).  If you run out of triage tags, contact Dennis for more.   Overall, participation is variable and widespread in the RTACS; ED RNs have been giving some resistance.    

Encourage your RTAC agencies to continue to participate in Triage Tuesday.

Contact Dennis for additional tags if needed.

Communicate with ED RNs on the importance of Triage Tuesday and their impact on the success of the program for others.

WEEP Table Top After Action Report

Discussion on critical follow-up items from the WEEP Table-Top AAR, TABLED TILL THE FEBRUARY 2007 MEETING

Review the AAR(s) and be prepared to discus at the February 2007 meeting

RTAC/ Trauma Coordinators Meting

Trauma System Update

Marianne Peck discussed a number of issues:

Senator Brown was not re-elected.  Hopefully this will not have a negative impact on our system.

PI Template:  It should be finalized later today and approved tomorrow by STAC.  These templates are audit reviews that can be used in your operations.

After Christmas, Marianne will be focusing her time and attention to hospital designations and workshops.  She will not be attending as many RTAC meetings.

Registry:  Debi Peters gave a summary report of where we are today with reports, equipment, and software.

None

RTAC Reports

Coordinators reported on what is going on in their RTAC.  Included are things that the RTAC Coordinators need to improve their effectiveness.

Judy Jones – Workshops #1 went well, #2 will be held next week.  Elections for her RTAC were recently held with a newly revised committee structure.  Now, a committee of one (the whole group) will meet for two hours to accomplish the goals of the previous sub-committees.  Their bylaws were finally approved.  PI:  fear of litigation/interpretation of the law continue to be an issue.

Greg Breen – He is trying to get out and meet his EMS agencies.  Has had 3 successful workshops

Greg Friese – The big challenge in their region is the amount of time that a patient remains in a level II or IV before being transferred to a level I or II.  (Only 30-50% of patients have a less than 2 hour stay at the level II or IV).  He is concerned over funding for EMS in the state with changes at the state level, concerns for the future of Wisconsin EMS (State EMS Section Chief Dan Williams retired his position).

Dan Williams/Lynne Sears – Hosted an ‘EMS Night’ educating EMS on the ‘Team Approach to Trauma’ care, included ER, OR, Med Flight, and Trauma Bay tours.  Trauma Coordinators from each hospital have been meeting 1-2 hours prior to each RTAC Meeting:  This has been very beneficial in promoting improved communications, trouble shooting, and education.

Dan Diamond – Needs to be in the know:  He wants to be included in the emails and other communications dealing with RTACs, STAC, etc.  He has seen a good response with the PEPP offering, about 50% of the services participation.  He is working on a communications project, but has been challenged by obtaining MOUs.  He is creating a Power-Point on how to use radio frequencies, interoperability, landing zones, etc.

RTAC Reports

Cal Lintz – His RTAC will be providing an educational session with each future RTAC meeting.  Dr. Strommen did a great piece dealing with the trauma care system, both state and locally.  As a resource for all RTACS, the ARMY recruiters will have ARMY Medics give a ‘topic’ presentation on army trauma care.

Tammi Hovde- Needs more information on things from Marianne.  Focus of her RTAC has been on the hospitals.  They have purchased a Sim-Man simulator and have been training hospital staff members.  Baldwin Hospital purchased the simulator with an RTAC grant, and will be using it with EMS agencies as well.  They have 24 care seat inspectors to date, and have given away more car seats.  Their next project is bike helmet and bike safety.  PI issues include tracking times, both hospital and EMS.

Bob Nack – (Delivered brownies to the group for being late with his AAR from the WEEP Tabletop).  He needs updated hospital contact info.  (Marianne to distribute the updated database to everyone).  Contact Nora at the state EMS office for EMS contact info for your areas.  What documentation is required to show attendance at both RTAC meetings and site-reviews? (Marianne says that attendance sheet is fine, summarizing is fine as well).  They are putting together a 1^st Responder written run report. 

Robert Ramerez – Wants more email communications as well.  The site-review process has been time consuming.  He is coordinating many educational courses for his RTAC (ATLS, etc).  He credits trauma coordinators in his RTAC with working well and hard together to work through the site-reviews.

Next Meeting is February 6, 2007