photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

A Lawrence Douglas County Fire Medical ambulance is pictured in July 2023.

Douglas County fire departments are now training to carry a broader range of life-saving medications for emergencies like heart attacks and overdoses, a move officials say will improve patient outcomes.

According to a memo included in the Douglas County Commission’s Aug. 13 meeting agenda, Lawrence-Douglas County Fire Medical has begun supplying new selected medications to Douglas County’s other fire departments. These include medications to treat conditions including heart attacks, respiratory distress, diabetic emergencies, drug overdoses, anaphylactic shock and cardiac arrest.

“Since these are often life-threatening emergencies, deploying these medications to these EMS first responder agencies greatly increases the odds that they can be provided to patients in time, especially in remote areas,” Division Chief John Darling said in a statement to commissioners.

Before 2022, there were separate treatment protocols in place for Douglas County first responder agencies, Darling told the Journal-World in an email. He said the protocols were more restricted in nature and prevented EMS providers from Douglas County fire agencies other than LDCFM from performing interventions that they otherwise would have been able to perform based on their EMS license from the Kansas Board of EMS.

The protocols established in 2022, on the other hand, apply to all EMS providers who are a part of a Douglas County fire agency and allow the providers to perform interventions and administer medications that are within their scope of practice under the Kansas Board of EMS license, Darling said via email.

“Prior to the change, while Douglas County providers could theoretically give these medications, the medications were not on scene until an LDCFM ambulance arrived,” Darling said via email. “By issuing these medications to our first responders to respond with, we are building upon the work started with the protocols.”

Any Douglas County provider who would administer these medications needs to be licensed as an EMS provider by the Kansas Board of EMS, and that medication or intervention must be within their scope of practice that is also set by the board. The certified responders are also required to recertify biannually and have to attend anywhere from 24 to 60 hours of continuing education in their renewal period, Darling said.

“From an operational standpoint, each department’s fire chief is responsible for determining when their personnel have been adequately prepared for these medications to be issued,” Darling said via email. “LDCFM is supporting this through both instructional lectures and hands-on training opportunities to familiarize these providers with the medications.”

Darling said LDCFM provides all medications and medical supplies to Douglas County first responder agencies. The agencies also operate under the same medical director as LDCFM, and therefore, the agencies haven’t been able to obtain these medications on their own.

“This issue was brought up at a meeting of the Douglas County Fire Chiefs, and a consensus was reached that all representatives had an interest in expanding the number of medications that all qualifying agencies/responders carried,” he said in the email.

Darling said county fire agencies provide first response to EMS incidents in rural Douglas County, Baldwin City and Eudora.

“These responders are often on-scene of a medical incident before an LDCFM ambulance,” Darling said in the email. “Many of these incidents are life-threatening medical emergencies where rapid administration of key medications can make a profound difference in the patient’s chances of survival and full recovery.”

He added that by distributing these medications more broadly to a larger pool of qualified EMS providers, the departments increase the chances the life-saving therapies can be administered in time to make a difference.

Currently, the medications have already been deployed to the Baldwin City Fire Department and Eudora Fire Department. Consolidated Fire District No. 1 and Willow Springs Fire Department are planning to conduct training for their personnel at the end of this month or early September.

“We expect to have issued these medications to all four fire agencies that provide EMS response in the very near future,” Darling said via email.