Perhaps you spent your free time diving into March Madness instead of keeping up on the latest on the ZOLL Pulse Blog. That’s OK. We’ve got you covered with our latest roundup of everything you may have missed while your bracket was [most likely] being busted.
Streamline Your EMS Billing Process with RescueNet Billing Pro
Bi-County Ambulance Service, located in Northern California, is a 911 ambulance company with an annual trip volume about 26,000 calls. We have about 104 field crew and five billers including myself. Prior to RescueNet Billing Pro, my staff used a massive excel spreadsheet that housed all the insurances websites, usernames and passwords in order to find and verify a patient’s insurance. The process was tedious. Learn what other ways Billing Pro increased efficiency for us to make billing easier.
How to Manage a Media Crisis Part 1: Simplify & Clarify Your Message
Ready. Fire. Aim. That’s how too many EMS agencies handle a crisis. They respond before they know what their message is, and they end up saying the wrong thing to the wrong audience. It’s easier if you plan for a crisis in advance so you can execute your strategy when needed, but a lot of EMS agencies find themselves unprepared during an emergency. For this four-part blog series, let’s focus on four topics of what to do after the crisis has already started.
10 Ways to Improve Efficiency & Start Saving Money Today!
Do you struggle trying to improve operational efficiencies within your EMS or Fire agency? Are you driven by trying to squeeze every dollar out of each new investment in technology? ZOLL has been focused on improving efficiency for decades. Here are some areas of your business you can evaluate and see if you are losing some money and by fixing them, you can improve efficiencies and start saving money today.
Hire for Behavior to Cultivate a Culture of Safety
EMS or Fire organizations that have committed, or are planning to develop, a culture of safety have many challenges facing them. For the staff that are currently employed, concentrated efforts of communication, training, relevant polices and leadership commitment is vital. This isn’t an easy task for those who were brought up with myopic attitudes. To some it’s OK to accept change when it’s easy and doesn’t significantly alter “that’s the way I’ve always done it” attitude. Others will embrace change, because they are hard wired to be an engaging steward of the organization. EMS isn’t a static profession, it’s always evolving and searching for new ways to be efficient and provide the best possible outcomes for its patients.
Kanawha County’s 5-Step Journey to Zero Day Billing
Kanawha County (West Virginia) Emergency Ambulance Authority (KCEAA) runs about 50,000 emergency responses and bills about a 100,000 responses a year throughout the region. We have a budget that everybody struggles with – especially at this time of year – as we start to come back into the next budget cycle. Several years ago, we made the switch to become a complete ZOLL shop using RescueNet Dispatch, ePCR and Billing. Why? We originally thought using different software vendors would prevent us from putting all of our eggs in one basket in the event of failures. The reality was that we spent a lot of time working on our system – managing upgrades and exchanges on various platforms – and not working on efficiencies for our billing department to help us get paid.
How to Manage a Media Crisis Part 2: Communicate with Your Staff
In Part 1 of this four-part series we focused on simplifying and clarifying your goals as a formal statement that all parties can focus on during a crisis. Now let’s focus on the audience that often gets ignored and forgotten during a crisis — your own employees. A crisis doesn’t only effect patients, it directly effects your staff. It’s your staff that has to communicate with angry, scared patients and their families; calming their fears and resolving their problems. It’s your staff that needs to keep their cool, show empathy and have crazy amounts of patience.
Are You Risking Lives When Trying to Save Lives?
Personal experience certainly makes a believer out of you. While working for a former EMS agency, I was present to see firsthand what happens when safety takes a back seat in an EMS organization. It wasn’t until a sentinel event that resulted in a fatality of a 12 year old did the organization realize that change was needed. To give you some perspective on losses, in just an 18-month period, ambulances were averaging 1.5 preventable crashes per month. These crashes injured employees, patients and others in vehicles. Several ambulances were so damaged they had to be permanently placed out of service.
12 People & Culture Courses You Shouldn’t Miss at SUMMIT
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