First responders and AHS Sherman medical Center staff came together for a meal Wednesday when the hospital held its annual first responders lunch. The event is in its fourth year.
“For me, it is about better continuity of care for the patients,” EMS Liaison Daniel Card said. “They know we are here and we want them to know they can trust us to bring these patients in for the best care. We also want to be familiar faces and build relationships in order to better help out community.”
Card deals with EMS to coordinate education and more.
“A lot of the time when EMS brings in patients my job is to follow up with those patients,” he said. “Sometimes EMS wants to know the outcome of the situations with those patients. We want to follow up with the EMS and patients. We reach out and thank them for bringing the patient into us and let them know the follow up.”
He also said each year this lunch is one way the hospital acknowledges the hard work of first responders.
“This is out fourth annual event, and each year, we feel that we do a better outreach to our first responders,” he said. “To improve that relationship, we want to keep thanking them for everything they do for us. We just want to keep improving that relationship every year.”
Courtney Osbourn is Sherman Medical’s stroke and trauma coordinator. She coordinates with all of the stroke patients and the directors to make sure stroke and trauma patients are well taken care of with medications and treatments to make sure they are done up to protocol.
“During the day, I go to all the traumas,” Osbourn said. “I am hands on with that.”
She works with the first responders almost daily.
“We want to find out what we could be doing better,” she said. “We want to know what we are doing well at. We want to know the good and the bad.”
Osbourn said that recognizing the first responders that serve this area on a daily basis is important.
“They have to first and foremost be able to trust that we can take care of the patients they bring us,” she said. “Second, we want them to be taken care of. A lot of people underestimate what our first responders go through and do on a daily basis. They make sure the patients are as stable as they can before they bring them to us. They are the first one there assessing and doing things. It is important that we have a trust relationship between us.”
