Health centers in Colorado to use war medical tactic to help save lives

KCNC

By Dillon Thomas

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    LOVELAND, Colorado (KCNC) — Two health centers in Northern Colorado are partnering to help increase survival odds to patients experiencing severe trauma. The two ambulance providers will now start carrying whole Type O positive blood in some of their emergency response vehicles after learning it could play a vital role in helping someone survive a medical emergency.

UCHealth Northern Colorado Foundation and Thompson Valley EMS will both start administering whole blood to trauma patients in the field instead of waiting to provide the whole blood at the hospital.

“When people have been suffering blood loss, we have been treating that by trying to replace it with salt water, normal saline. That doesn’t provide anywhere close to the benefits people need,” said David Edwards, battalion chief for Thompson Valley.

Dr. Warren Dorlac, trauma surgeon at UCHealth Medical Center of the Rockies, served in the military. He said the lessons learned while treating soldiers on the battleground have now translated to care in Northern Colorado.

“Those are all lessons we have learned over every conflict since World War I,” Dorlac said. “If we are going to make a big difference in our outcomes in trauma, is it by working in the pre-hospital setting.”

Dorlac said administering whole blood in the field can increase survival odds for trauma patients by almost five percent. And studies show getting patients to the hospital is critical in their likelihood of survival.

“The majority of our patients in trauma actually die in the pre-hospital setting,” Dorlac said.

Now, thanks to expensive cooling and heating devices, supplying whole blood to patients in the field is possible.

Battalion chiefs can now carry whole blood in a frozen bag via a special cooler. Then, when they get to an emergency scene, an expensive technology allows them to heat the blood to body temperature in just a matter of minutes.

Patients can then be administered the whole blood before they even leave the scene of their traumatic injury.

“Whole blood has the components of clotting factors and oxygen carrying components that people need to make better recoveries,” Edwards said.

The frozen blood carried in the coolers is exchanged at the hospital for a fresh pack every 24 hours. Donated blood can expire. So the blood in the emergency vehicles is given to hospitals for immediate use after 24 hours in the field without use. A new pack is then given to the medics, assuring there is no waste of resources.

Northern Colorado is not the first region to gain this technology or service in Colorado. Some emergency response agencies in the mountains have started the practice.

While the service would save lives in any community, not all can afford to have it.

According to Dorlac, Medicare does not fund the whole blood care in the field. Because private insurance companies usually follow the standards set by Medicare, nearly all insurance providers refuse to pay for the potentially life-saving care.

Residents within UCHealth and Thompson Valley EMS’s jurisdictions in Northern Colorado will now have access to this service. However, that is because UCHealth’s private fund it swallowing the bill for the community.

Health advocates are working to lobby congress to force Medicare’s hand to cover the process, which then could make the care more equitable to other communities, especially rural areas.

Even in urban areas, it can take more than 30 minutes to get someone experiencing a traumatic injury to a hospital when factoring in time for 911 calls, response, transport and arrival at the emergency room.

When every minute can count, Dorlac said he hopes congress can make a change to assure more Americans can have this same resource offered to them in the future.

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