System	County	Comments
ReddiNet	Contra Costa San Bernardino Los Angeles Alameda	Contra Costa is a relatively new user of Reddinet but that with RIMS would be it for us. I'm forwarding this to the OA's within Region II so you can get more feedback. We have had ReddiNet now for over a year or so. The system has worked very well and the ReddiNet staff are always available for training, questions, and any assistance necessary. They are also very adept at working with the hospital personnel and administration. I highly recommend ReddiNet. Would like to see it state-wide so that in the future the status of all hospitals on the system would be immediately available in the event of a disaster. Obviously at LA County EMS I am going to be a bit biased for Reddinet since we use it. However, with that said, it is not the panacea for all our needs as of yet. There are several products out there that can be modified or written to fit our special healthcare needs. The positive thing for us down here is that Reddinet is starting to take hold in Southern California and Reddinet seems to be willing to work to improve the product. There are quite a few things I would do to improve Reddinet including the ability to have it be internet based to cut costs to hospitals since it is RF driven at this time. Reddinet is working on that at this time. The ability to have a satellite based version would be another excellent option. However, fulltime satellite time is so expensive if it is maintained 24/7. There definitely needs to be redundancy so that if there is a system crash or disaster the product can be brought up online with another means. With the expansion of disaster tools including epidemiological surveillance and the integration of data into the State OES RIMS reporting tool the Reddinet could be an even stronger product. These are apparently things that are in development. Linda Tripoli at Hospital Association of So. Cal (HASC) is the contact for Reddinet and she can get you specs as to what is in the hopper for development. There are some other programs out there that may meet your needs. I think that the "E-Team" Program is probably one that can be modified to meet your mission but I don't know how far along they are in technology. I understand that the E-Team creators were some of the original RIMS developers for State OES. Now I have nothing against these gentleman, I don't know them or "E-Team" but in it's current state I wouldn't use RIMS for any medical application as it is user unfriendly and most definitely not what an EMS Agency would need to monitor system status. My 2 Cents, Good luck on your mission "Mr. Phelps". As you probably know, we use ReddiNet in Los Angeles. We are working currently on upgrading the surveillance portion and of course we use the diversion and bed availability components on a daily basis. Alameda County and Contra Costa County are at varying stages of implementing the Reddinet system. It seems to be user friendly, modular, and adaptable. We here at the EMS office are getting it put in in the next few weeks as we just moved and we were not able to put an antenna on the building we were in before.
EMSystem	Monterey San Benito Santa Clara	Monterey is implementing the EMSystem. Seems simple 800/yr per facility no hardware needed as it uses internet. I have no actual experience as we have not yet gone live San Benito County EMS is participating in the EMSystem for tracking patient care, bed availability etc.. For more information see www.emsystem.com. San Benito County EMS and Hazel Hawkins Hospital are participating with a group from Monterey County. We use EMsystem v.1. Try www.emsystem.com. Also Chris Felton is the "Manager". He is an ED physician in Milwaukee. cfelton@infinityhealthcare.com It a pretty robust system. The local system administrator is Jerry Mowery, an ED nurse at San Jose Hospital JLMowery@pacbell.n
QA Net	San Diego	We use our QA Net to track hospital resources. It is a locally developed system utilizing a wide area network to which all the hospital EDs are connected, either directly (56K land line) or via modem. The hospitals update their resources as necessary, and the screen automatically updates itseld every 15 seconds. The screen is used constantly by the base hospitals for patient destination decisions. Data from the screens is saved and used for system surveillance. We have just released a Request for Information (RFI) for a new system, as the current is quite old and outdated technologically.
None	Santa Barbara Imperial Tulare	We have a mednet radio system in place but, nothing for ongoing daily electronic surveillance. Imperial County has submitted a proposal to EMSA to fund the development of an EMS Management Information System that will build on an existing infrastructure that provides for a web-based health services database that aggregates data from area hospitals, community clinics and the public health department. The database and software are developed and maintained by Advanced Business Software (ABS). If funded, the database will provide for EMS QA/CQI, a trauma registry, and a bioterrorism and disease surveillance system. One PSAP in Tulare County is using Pinpoint. We currently have a Communications Subcommittee investigating new communication systems such as Reddi-Net, Nomad, etc. I know Fresno County has just gone to the ReddiNet system.
HART	San Francisco San Mateo	San Francisco uses a system developed by AMR, called HART. It is a low cost, Internet-based alternative to the much more expensive ReddiNet. When you consider stakeholder opposition to long term expensive contracts, and the reliability of the Internet, HART is a good system. We have been able to modify the HART system to meet our specific system needs, and will be developing a BT surveillance component. If you are interested, check out the system at www.emsdatadoor.com We have the HART system supplied by AMR. We use it and so does San Francisco. Would you like to come down and see it? I'd buy you lunch. Barbara Pletz, San Mateo County EMS Administrator
	Sonoma	The Coastal Valleys EMS Agency does have an alternative that we are in the process of activating now. We actually developed the system in-house about 6 months ago, but it has taken this long to implement through all of the hospital IS/IT departments. We have not officially named the system yet, but we simply refer to it as our Hospital Status System. At this point, all of the hospitals in Sonoma County are connected, in the near future, we will add in Napa and Mendocino County hospitals. It tracks the key components of hospital status: · ED availability (on or off diversion) · CT scanner · ICU bed availability · surgical availability · trauma services (if applicable) · respiratory isolation bed availability We recently added respiratory isolation bed availability as a result of bioterrorism planning. Please contact Jim Adamski of my staff for more information (707-565-6505). We will be holding a training session for the new system for all area hospitals on February 14. Let me know what else you find, please.
	Kern	Doug: We have an internet based web site that is used for real time, detailed Hospital Emergency Department status and we are looking into a Bio Surveillance addition. The web site is password protected. It is primarily used as a communications method related to Hospital ED overload and patient destination. We also use it for multi-casualty incident patient routing and systemic alerts. It does not capture in-hospital bed availability. I could look into a temporary password/username and walk you through the functionality of the web site if you are interested, or make a trip to Bakersfield for a demo. Developed through our information systems department, my design and specifications. It is geared more for day to day Hospital ED Status tracking and is based on a weighted E.D. Overload Scale that we developed, tested and used manually for about a year. The scale factors points benchmarked on ED bed capacity and normal staffing compared to current staffing, number of Med-Surg/Peds/Telemetry admission holds, number of ICU/CCU/DOU admission holds (with a higher point weight), ambulance patient volume in the previous hour, and probable admissions awaiting orders or in the waiting room. You can check the site at a glance to determine level of overload. The ED's enter their data hourly.