Nick Graf

Nick Graf

When Brookfield Fire Department’s paramedics and emergency medical technicians arrive at the scene of a medical call, they are under a doctor’s direction as to how to assess the patient, treat the injury and administer medication. These directions are known as protocols.
On Dec. 31, the department changed its protocol provider from Trumbull Memorial Hospital to University Hospitals of Cleveland, said Firefighter/Paramedic Nick Graf, Brookfield’s point man for medical issues.
University Hospitals’ protocols already were in use by a majority of the pre-hospital medical providers in Trumbull County, and are used by providers in other counties as well, he said.
University Hospitals has a protocol board made up of doctors, nurses, paramedics and EMTs, as opposed to a single doctor; allows a little more flexibility in patient care; and offers more training, including sending trainers into fire stations, much of the training for free, Graf said in explaining the reasoning for the switch.
He also said University Hospitals does a better job of keeping up with the science of medicine and adjusting its protocols in response to scientific discovery.
“Being up to date, keeping up with what science is saying, is very important to anybody, and giving our patients the best outcome,” Graf said.
Many of the University Hospitals protocols for less-severe medical conditions are the same or similar as those provided by Trumbull, said Graf, who was familiar with University Hospitals’ protocols from his volunteer work with the Berlin Fire Department.
promo“Some of the more advanced stuff has (changed),” he said. “We have more drugs we can give for, like, in heart attacks. Different protocols when it comes to traumas, the upper-level traumas; maybe, people who have been thrown out of their car during a car accident. Some of those things have changed, in my opinion, to the better.”
The change does not prohibit Brookfield from transporting patients to Trumbull Memorial or any other hospital, Graf said. By law, he has to transport a patient to the hospital of the patient’s choice, or the closest, most appropriate hospital, he said.
UH offers a computer app to access the protocols, and that app has been downloaded onto Brookfield’s recently acquired iPad tablet computers.
There is no subscription fee or cost associated with the protocols.