Milwaukee County blood transfusions; EMS crews now offering in field
WAUWATOSA, Wis. - Every fire department in Milwaukee County will soon have a new resource that could be the difference between life and death for trauma patients.
They aren't your typical Igloo coolers by any stretch of the imagination. In Wauwatosa, the fire department's ambulance now has one that's connected to Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and cellular, because they're carrying and tracking something new: blood.
Climb in the back of a Wauwatosa Fire Department ambulance, and you'd never notice its newest feature: a cooler that stores two units of type O-positive blood, just above freezing temperatures.
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"We're the first fire-based EMS system in the State of Wisconsin to be doing this, so we're pretty excited," Wauwatosa Fire Assistant Chief Barbara Kadrich said. "We're carrying the blood, because we never know how long it will take us to get that patient with an injury to the hospital."
It's part of a pilot project for trauma patients through the Milwaukee County Office of Emergency Management.
Dr. Ben Weston is the Chief Medical Director.
"When folks are having traumatic hemorrhagic shock — so what that means is they're losing a lot of blood, and they're in a critical condition — what they really need is blood," Weston said.
The fluids help stabilize a patient's pressures so that blood can flow to the organs.
Soon, when any of the county's 14 fire departments respond to a trauma call, these trained paramedics and EMTs can now act as an extension of a trauma-trained hospital by providing those patients a "whole blood" transfusion in place of a classic IV.
Studies show that it can increase the survival rate by more than 80%.
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"We're gonna bring what patients need to the field, and ultimately, this program will save lives," Weston said.
And it's not just here; UW Health is now using whole blood on its med flight helicopter in Dane County, where Dr. Ryan Newberry said the benefits are already showing.
"The reality is there's a lot of distance to move these patients, and time matters," he said. "And so, the more that we can push out the care that you would get a trauma center to where you are, we can start the care where you are, it allows us to start treating you there."
In Wauwatosa, the fire department said it will store the blood for around seven to nine days. If it's not used, they'll bring it back to the hospital to be swapped out. The "old blood" then becomes the first to be used in the hospital so that nothing goes to waste.