Medic2medic Podcast

Episode 133 is Dan Patterson. Dr. P. Daniel Patterson studies safety in emergency care settings with special emphasis on safety culture, fatigue, shift work, sleep health, teamwork, medical errors and adverse events, and clinician injury in the prehospital EMS setting. Fatigue in EMS is a hot topic. EMS fatigue is a common workplace problem. The number of EMS fatigue-related occurrences involving EMS personnel and their patients is on the rise. Some of the most recent research shows that more than half of emergency medical services personnel report severe mental and physical fatigue while at work. What is the right shift? Are EMS leaders prepared and educated to handle this problem? This week Dan discusses the findings after his team of co-investigators reviewed over 38,000 pieces of literature to develop guidelines on this important subject. We discuss the 5 recommendations and what are the next steps in this project?