2023 Annual Report - Flipbook - Page 27
Emergency Services
"Cat e" rrific
SUCCESS STORY
CHARLES COUNTY EMERGENCY SERVICES
AWARD "OUTSTANDING EMS PROGRAM"
An excerpt from the "Maryland EMS News"
T his a w ard re cog nize s a prog r am t hat of fer s an innov ative approach to reducing death and disabilit y. Through it s
Resuscitation Quality Improvement Program, the Charles County
9-1-1 Fire/EMS Communications Center – in conjunction with
RQI Partners, LLC, the American Heart Association, and Laerdal
Programs – is working to help its 9-1-1 specialists’ more quickly
recognize incidents of cardiac arrest and, in turn, initiate cardiopulmonar y resuscitation (CPR) as early in the prehospital stage
of patient care as possible.
Through this qualit y improvement initiative,
9-1-1 specialist s have helped to improve
patient outcomes by reducing death and
disabilit y while demonstrating significant
improvement of deliver y of viable patients
to area hospitals.
One of the Café’s first adoptions
was for our feline sweetie named
CINNABON , who had been
living at the CCACC for 69 days
with no prospects for adoption, was
ADOPTED WITHIN 48 HOURS
of being in the café!
Guests being able to sit back and relax in the
Café while playing and interacting with these
amazing, adoptable cats has proven to be a
recipe for purr fect pet matchmaking. CCACC
does a fantastic job ensuring all cats are vetted
prior to visiting the café so rest assured that your
cat pals are always ready for their new homes!
All guests are welcome to come to the café,
potential adoptee or not. It’s a great place to
come, knowing that your feline buddies will
always be happy to see you, snuggle or play!
The Cat Café even holds events
for the communit y such as the
crowd favorite, CAT YOGA! Visit
online for more infor mat ion:
FelineFelonsCatCafe.com.
This endeavor has truly taken on the Emergency
Ser vices mission of…
Answ攀爀ing the ca氀氀,
saving lives!
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Charles County Government Annual Report • 2023
First implemented in August 2019, the program is designed to
boost telecommunicators’ per formance in providing T-CPR
instructions, establishing the correct rate for compressions,
and limiting interruptions to CPR, resulting in the deliver y of
high-qualit y prehospital patient care. Incorporating cognitive
learning and scenario-based training, quarterly completion and
compliance repor ts, and continuous feedback, the program
enjoys 100% compliance, resulting in the procurement or renewal
of 28 RQI-Telecommunicator credentials. In the first quar ter
of 2023, recognition of cardiac arrest occurred in 100% of the
calls submit ted for case review, meeting the KPI goal for star tof-call to recognition of cardiac arrest. The first three months of
this year also saw the best problem-solving scores and fastest
first-compression times recorded since the program’s launch.
Since its inception, the sur vival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac
arrests has increased 220%.
Charles Count y has had a huge success this
year with the first ever of its kind in Southern
Mar yland, a brand-new Cat Café! The Feline
Felons Cat Café collaborated with the Charles
Count y Animal Care Center (CCACC) and of ficially opened its doors in September 2023. To
date, the café has adopted out a whopping
111 cats, all from CCACC, to their new FURever
homes! Not only did these awesome cats gain
homes, but CCACC was able to clear its cages
for the incoming homeless and stray cats. This
sounds like a purrfect success and massive win
for our feline friends!