Rescue Inc. In The News

Rescue Inc.: The Critical Link by Barry Beeman
President / CEO Brattleboro Memorial Hospital
3/6/2009

In the more than one hundred years that Brattleboro Memorial Hospital has been serving the community’s healthcare needs, the quality and sophistication of medicine has evolved dramatically. The advances have impacted every aspect of patient care, but nowhere is this more evident than in the field of emergency medicine where critical interventions are often initiated in the field, well before a patient arrives at the BMH emergency department. In Brattleboro and thirteen surrounding towns, the crucial link in the chain of emergency care is provided by Rescue Inc., a Brattleboro-based nonprofit EMS service established in 1965.

The field of emergency medicine was in its infancy when a group of Rescue Inc. volunteers first began to respond to emergencies in the 1960s. Protocols were minimal, and the primary role of the responders was to provide a way to get the sick and injured to the hospital where they could then be treated.

Over the ensuing decades, medical studies directly linked positive patient outcomes to effective and immediate field interventions, especially in critical cases requiring speedy patient stabilization such as cardiac arrest or major trauma. In our community, where some patients live in outlying towns, the added transport time to BMH underscores the importance of the field care administered by Rescue’s EMTs.

As our community’s primary provider of advanced life support in the field, Rescue Inc. has consistently proven to be at the leading edge of emergency medicine. Working under the medical direction of Dr. Chris Schmidt (Director of Emergency Medicine at BMH), Rescue Chief Mark Considine leads a highly skilled organization comprised of volunteer and paid EMTs who provide critical interventions in the field for patients experiencing heart attacks, drug overdoses, diabetic emergencies, breathing difficulties, traumatic injuries, and countless other presentations. By the time these patients reach our emergency department, the Rescue crew, often working on scene with first responders, has taken the required steps to stabilize the patient and has provided our doctors with critical information that saves valuable time in the ED and directly contributes to positive patient outcomes.

The caseload demand on the BMH hospital emergency department has risen dramatically over the last ten years, mirroring a national trend. In 2009, Rescue Inc. will treat and transport some 3,000 ill patients to our ED. This is in addition to the patients who Rescue Inc. transports to Grace Cottage Hospital and out of area hospitals such as Dartmouth Hitchcock on a daily basis. The quality of the care that these patients receive from Rescue Inc. in the field is exceptional, and on behalf of the staff at BMH, I wish to extend a sincere thank you to the providers at Rescue, Inc. As emergency medicine continues to evolve, we are extremely fortunate to be able to count on Rescue Inc. as our partners in the field, and BMH is committed to continuing our work together to deliver state of the art emergency care to the community.