EMS Equipment
By Will Chapleau

Making The Best Of EMS Trade Exhibitions
It’s the time of year for conferences, and there’s plenty of them to attend whether they’re regional, state or national shows. Typically they offer educational opportunities as well as products to review.

To get the most out of conferences, planning ahead will pay dividends. Strolling down each aisle at an exposition hall offers plenty to see and plenty to learn about.

If you’re going just for fun, then by all means, wander and enjoy. If you are considering purchases though, a little planning can ensure a more productive trip. It’s sort of like shopping for groceries without a shopping list. You may come back with a lot of stuff that you bought on impulse, but without some things you really need.

Before even thinking about attending an exhibition, consider what you’ll be looking for. It might be time to look at vehicles or monitors or a myriad of other things you might need. You might also be in the market for training programs and related tools.

A good place to start is with the list of vendors who will be attending the conference or exhibition. From that list, you can put together a list of things you’ll want to look at and get more information. Maps are generally provided too. The bigger the conference, the more important a map becomes as some can be like mazes, impossible to navigate without a map.

It would be nice if the exhibitions were laid out like the grocery store, so comparable items were located next to one another for comparison. In truth, many of them start out like that, but as space fills up they end up more spread out.

Let’s imagine for a moment the world was perfect, and the exposition was laid out with aisles arranged by types of products or services, and we start this virtual exhibition looking for the items on your list.

The first aisle is ambulances, and there are always plenty to see at these shows. If you are thinking about new ambulances, consider starting with no preconceived notions of what type or designs you may want. It’s better to start with a list of needs. When you start reviewing products in this manner, you may be surprised at what’s available when you don’t rule anything out before you start.

Patient Handling
You may still end up with exactly what you expected, but by identifying needs, you may find yourself in something very different, something not even on your radar that’s more flexible and still covers all your needs.

In the next aisle is patient handling equipment. If you’re in the market for new stretchers, spine boards or stair chairs, you can be sure vendors offering their wares will be out in force. Take a needs inventory and determine what you need your gear to do before you set foot in the aisle. Consider your environmental and terrain needs. Perhaps you have many multi-story buildings with narrow stairways to navigate. Telling the vendors the nature of your work will help them show you their answers to your problems.

You’ll find yourself comparing similar products from several vendors rather than the ones they happened to show you because you walked in during a presentation and they made assumptions about your needs. The people working the booths know their equipment very well and if you’re clear about the details of your work, they will show you the devices they have to make your job easier and safer.

In another aisle you’ll find lots of EMS publishers. Clearly, I like this aisle. I even have a few things of my own in that aisle, and I love to read and have been teaching for 30 years.

You’ll want check out the publishers of journals, newspapers and magazines. Many of them provide free subscriptions for departments and can often help make sure each station within the department has its own copy. Another way to maximize your subscription is through an internal routing system in your department. Put the magazine in a folder with a check sheet on the cover with instructions to forward it to the next person on the list.

You’ll also find lots of books in the publications aisle. It’s a great place to start or build a library. Department libraries provide good resources for project research, references for educational or training programs or for solving problems that might arise during our work. If you don’t have a library, consider one.

Lending Libraries
Some departments have extensive lending libraries that allow department members to sign out books. Again, this is one of those things that can change the culture of your department. Once your people know they have resources available to resolve disputes or answer troubling questions, they will find all kinds of ways to use it.

The continuing education aisle is one that’s grown considerably over the last few years. It used to have just a few associations providing guidance for where programs might be located in your area. More often than not, it was usually a case of “can’t get there from here” kind of thing, and the educational opportunity would involve travel.

Continuing Education
Several years ago, however, video and satellite companies began providing products allowing personnel to participate in continuing education in-house with programs validated for national registry credit for most states. Through subscription fees, monthly programs can be sent or beamed to you, and after viewing and completing exercises, the credits are awarded to your personnel.

These kind of offerings have expanded into cable and the Internet, and there is a wide array of offerings that can be as simple or as interactive as required. Many of them include databases that allow you to manage your education histories so you can produce moment-to-moment reports of your entire department’s continuing education history.

And speaking of associations, that aisle has grown considerably over the years. Participation in associations is an important part of creating a greater awareness of the larger EMS community outside of our departments. It affords us the opportunity to share our experiences with others, which can validate our work, and at the same time, expose us to the work of other like-minded professionals.

The Monitor Aisle
State associations can help you navigate state-related issues, and national organizations can open up worlds of possibilities to you through committee work and educational programs. Consider membership for yourself and encourage it for others on your department. Whether your interest is fire, ems, administration or education, there is a place for you to hone your skills if you give it a chance.

Back on the hardware side for a moment, there’s always plenty to see in the monitor aisle.

Over the last decade, the old 75-pound behemoths with tiny screens have been replaced with a wide array of lightweight and durable monitors and defibrillators with expansive features. Whether you need automated external defibrillators (AEDs) or monitor/defibrillators with 12-lead capability and capnography, there are several from which to chose.

Putting together a needs list along with a description of your work environment will help vendors show the best combination of components to suit your needs.

There are more aisles and indeed, you can continue a virtual investigation and browse Internet sites and make electronic inquiries to follow a path to move your department forward.

Whatever you do, make a plan to better your exhibition experience and give you the best chance of improving your practice.

Show attendees will always feel better after a show if they went in knowing the tools they need and the environments in which they’ll be expected to perform. Equipment – and even education and books – should match your employee population, their abilities and their needs.

Finally, it’s OK to have dreams about what you and your department can be. Ask the questions, tell your story and let the vendors serve you rather than accepting the first thing you see.

Until the next time, stay safe.

Editor’s Note: Will Chapleau, who has 30 years of EMS experience, is the Advanced Trauma Life Support (ATLS) program manager for the American College of Surgeons. He is the former chief of the Chicago Heights (Ill.) Fire Department, has served since 1996 as the chairperson for the Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) program of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians and has been a member of its international faculty since 1984. He is a board member of the National Association of EMS Educators.