Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine/Emergency medicine and EMS task force/Archive 1

**WikiProject Medicine/Emergency medicine and EMS task force/Archive 1**
WikiProject Medicine/Emergency medicine and EMS task force/Archive 1
	Location of Uqbar
Country	Uqbar
Organisations	Red cross; Red point; Red square
Authorities	Norm Ferrier
Law	EMS Act of Uqbar from 6 October 2008
Avg. response time	12 min
Personnel	Paramedics in Germany
Phone number	911

New task force

This task force has been created as a result of the split from EMS from First aid, as mentioned at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject First aid. It is currently just a copy of the previous WP:EMS, but it will be modified to be more of an EM/EMS task force in the near future. --Scott Alter 00:43, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I ask that for the time being, people currently do not tag any new articles with {{WikiProject Emergency medical services}} for this task force. Once an admin makes the changes I requested to {{WPMED}}, I will begin the process of merging the {{WikiProject Emergency medical services}} and {{WPMED}} templates. Articles that contain only the WPEMS tag will be easy to convert. Articles with both tags will need to be specifically identified and manually merged (unless we can find a bot to do the merging). --Scott Alter 01:50, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very good Scott, if you need help please let me know what I can do. I'm ready and willing. Thanks for all your hard work with this conflict and split! Medicellis (talk) 16:13, 20 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If there's anything you think would be good to be done, go ahead and do it. I'm still waiting for an admin to change {{WPMED}} before I can tackle the assessments. We may have to manually go through all 300 tagged articles to merge the tags...I'll need lots of help with that! Thanks for the offer. --Scott Alter 02:36, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem, just tell me what you need done and I'm there Medicellis (talk) 18:19, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So, I've just gone through all of the articles tagged with both WPEMS and WPMED. All of these double articles are now properly tagged with appropriate importance assignments (around 100 articles). This leaves around 200 articles (see here). I made {{WikiProject Emergency medical services}} into a sort of redirect to {{WPMED}} - so {{WikiProject Emergency medical services}} no longer exists. However, the remaining articles still with this tag should be converted to WPMED, and given a separate importance parameter for WPMED from the task force. The goal is to have no more articles that transclude

Done{{WikiProject Emergency medical services}}. You could help with this if you have the time. --Scott Alter 02:30, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

no problem will start on it tonight Medicellis (talk) 02:34, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Scott question, with you going through the double tagged articles it was easy assessing the importance of the articles as it relates to WP:MED, BUT my questions is how to I rate the articles, when a previous WP:MED editor hasn't assessed its value. As I have bias towards EMS related articles but on the WP:med scale they will be of lower importance. Any strategies for this? Medicellis (talk) 02:50, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just do the best you can. No one should fault you if they disagree with your prioritization, as you are doing it in good faith. Generally, follow the Wikipedia:WikiProject Medicine/Assessment#Importance scale. Off the top of my head, here are some tips. Anything specific to EMS is probably low-importance with regard to all of medicine. Anything specific to both emergency medicine and EMS is probably mid-importance. And you do not have to do them all - there's no rush. I'll do some more tomorrow evening. --Scott Alter 03:07, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Very good, and I think that will work fine, and it took me 3-4 days to add 250+ of those pages into WP:EMS, I wasn't trying to get them done all in one night, especially since I can get side tracked so easy with readying many of them, LOL. thanks for the help Medicellis (talk) 03:17, 23 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scott, I went through all the transcluded pages and re-tagged them. Regards --Medicellis (talk) 03:40, 24 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice work. Thanks for going through all these. And thanks for the barnstar too! So, how should we approach improving the task force-associated articles? I see that you've added to the todo list, but I think it is also important to get emergency medicine and emergency medical services to FA-class (or at least initially to GA-Class). It is relatively easy to create or expand existing articles to C-Class, so is it better to have a few good articles, or many okay articles? Both should eventually be done, and a rewrite of EM and EMS may be necessary to incorporate references. --Scott Alter 04:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No problem Scott, I agree that our 1st order of business should be getting EMS page to GA class 1st then work on emergency medicine. Again, I will be relying on your experience on here to get the GA work on the article started as I have seen some drives for a couple of the GA and FA class articles, but you would be more familiar with the wikipedia way and how to interact with the community. After EMS I think we need to get the "TOP" rated articles and that are stub and start class to GA level articles, there is alot of them, but I think EMS is #1 for sure. I will be on vacation till Monday or Tuesday and I will get back into the swing of things then. Thanks for your help Medicellis (talk) 16:42, 1 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Merge of Organization of emergency medical assistance & Emergency medical services

I was the one that purposed the AfD for this page, it really need to be completly redone and/or merge, Consensus was to merge into Emergency medical services which I did. I will need some help citing the sections and merging parts of other countries sections into the appropriate page.
Article merged: See old talk-page Talk:Organization of emergency medical assistance
Per Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Organization_of_emergency_medical_assistance select parts of the page were merged into this article. These sections are in need of reference espeically the "stay and play" and "load and go". I merged some of the other countries info, but this might be better merged into the specific EMS pages by countries, as I verify the information and I will move/merge the information as appropriate. Medicellis (talk) 23:23, 21 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Expanding and creating alphabet soup classes

Most of these pages need to be created and or expanded updated

ACLS - Advanced Cardiac Life Support [1] Not done
PALS - Pediatric Advanced Life Support [2] Not done
ITLS (formally BTLS) - International Trauma Life Support [3] Not done
PHTLS - Pre-Hospital Trauma Life Support - NAEMT [4] Not done
CCEMTP - Critical Care Emergency Medical Transport Program Not done
ALSO - Advanced Life Support in Obstetrics Done
NRP - Neonatal Resuscitation Program [5] held by American Academy of Pediatrics Done
FP-C - Certified Flight Paramedic administered by Board for Critical Care Transport Paramedic Certification (BCCTPC)[6] Not done

NAEMT Programs

PEPP - Pediatric Education for Prehospital Professionals [7] Not done
EPC - Emergency Pediatric Care [8] Not done
AMLS - Advanced Medical Life Support [9] Not done
NAEMSP - National Association of EMS Physicians [10] Not done

Should each individual course have its own article? I'm not entirely convinced this is necessary. Since Wikipedia is not a how-to source of information, the specific algorithms should not be included. Therefore, would there be sufficient content remaining for a decent article? Maybe an article entitled "emergency medical courses" or even a "list of emergency medical courses" (or something like that) would be better. It could be either an overview article, or a list-type article that would contain either a link to a full article on the course, or an external link to the program. Even if we do keep the individual articles, a list may even be more useful to readers, as it would provide the major courses with a brief description all in one place. --Scott Alter 04:31, 27 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I just created List of emergency medicine courses, based on the above list. I'm still undecided whether it would be better to have separate pages for each course, or a summary on this list article. --Scott Alter 18:22, 2 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

May I suggest that a summary be included for each course, rather than creating a new page for each one. It might be helpful to categorize them based on (a) whether it's a pediatric focus; and (b) the organization responsible for the curriculum. I'd be happy to help with this, but I'm rather new to the editing side of wiki & I'm new to this project, so I don't want to go moving stuff around on you guys. I have marked ACLS and PALS as

Done since those articles already exist. Should NAEMSP be moved elsewhere since it's an association & not a specialty / certification? -- -- David Hepburn III (talk) 03:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Project Barnstar

Ive Created the EMS Star. so here it is.

{{EMS Star|Reason for awarding the barnstar}}

Results in

		The Medic Barnstar
		Reason for awarding the barnstar

E E 04:25, 2 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

navbox?

hi there, I found this group from reading (and commenting) the german EMS article. Maybe you can use a navbox for EMS around the world? (I love navboxes ;-) A navbox is nicer then a long list of see also (IMHO).

Keep on with your good work! Greetings Sebastian scha. (talk) 19:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I expanded the navbox by adding the "Paramedics in ..." articles and placed it on all of the articles in the template. If there are enough articles uniquely about EMS and not EM, maybe this could be expanded to include all EMS-related articles. --Scott Alter 00:22, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency medical services by country article

I don't think the article Emergency medical services by country is necessary and it should be deleted. If anyone has any comments, please reply at Talk:Emergency medical services by country#Afd?. --Scott Alter 23:52, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infoboxes on Emergency medical services by country articles

I appreciate all of the hard work Emrgmgmtca has been putting in to the Emergency medical services by country articles, but I do not think that {{infobox country}} should be used on any of these articles. The purpose of this infobox is to be used on articles of countries - not articles about countries. Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes), infoboxes are "used in articles to present certain summary or overview information about the subject." The infobox should contain quick facts from the contents of the article - not other information about another topic (in this case, the country, and not EMS in the country). Maybe we should make a new infobox for EMS by country articles, but I'm not sure what it should contain. Maybe include stats like level of coverage (BLS/ALS or EMT/medic/RN/MD) and average response times to the scene and to the hospital, but this information may not be available on a national basis, and it varies widely within the same country. Also, I don't think it should include a flag or map (since those are geopolitical associations with the country and are not directly related to EMS). --Scott Alter 16:24, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I've pared the country boxes down considerably from the information originally contained in them. The intent is not to create an 'atlas'-like article, but to provide the reader (or researcher) with other items that would potentially be useful when comparing the various methods of service delivery. I agree that additional information on health care systems would provide useful context for the information in the articles, but finding it, consistently, will not be easy. The items that have been provided are each there for an express purpose. The flags, admittedly, pretty things up and provide a bit of a national identity to the article. The maps are there because an absolutely astonishing number of people have no idea where any other country is located (hand them an unlabeled map and ask them to label it...there have been studies done!), and location is an important part of context when examining service delivery. The only other information which has been included at this point is basic demographics (size of the area under study, population, population density); all of which are factors considered when analyzing and planning EMS service delivery. We've managed to get all of these articles from 'stubs' to 'B' articles. When I looked at 'A' level articles for common characteristics, in order to enhance these articles further, the infoboxes were a pretty common theme; I'm assuming that they make the article more useful by providing additional background information and context for the main article. Enhancing the infoboxes with additional information would be, in my opinion a great thing, if someone has the time and knowledge to address this additional refinement, and I would welcome it. Eliminating the infoboxes, though, would be, in my opinion, a mistake. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 16:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, an additional thought on the flags and maps... They may be geopolitical in nature, but we ARE (in this circumstance) creating articles about how EMS delivery is organized and occurs in one particular geopolitical location (e.g the article is about EMS in the Netherlands...not about some non specific small area of northwestern Europe). My other thought on the geopolitical front is that almost every article I have encountered in here describes EMS as if it occurs exclusively in the U.S. replete with U.S. jargon and generalizations in statements of fact that don't apply to EMS anywhere BUT the U.S.. Yes, we are writing about EMS, not the countries involved, but you know, every little bit that helps to internationalize the perspective of this section makes its own positive contribution. Just my thoughts. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 17:06, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's me again

Hi there. You would like something looking like this above? It's only a very rough thingi, done with at hot needle in 20 minutes. Please feel free to change or add anything.

Please do not use it from my user page in articles. It need to be at [Template:Infobox name]

Greetings Sebastian scha. (talk) 17:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Next change: I think the infobox can be set to all EMS articles including the Emergency medical services and all Paramedics in ... now. The map can also be an image, maybe a car. Sebastian scha. (talk) 19:58, 6 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am not disputing that the articles should not have an infobox. I don't want to come off as being argumentative or condescending, but it is a pet peeve of mine to use templates properly and to only include information relevant to the article. The infobox currently on the articles is inappropriate. {{Infobox Country}} is specifically for articles about countries (see Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Infobox Country - they are all articles for the countries themselves). If you look at any template in Category:"Country/Territory topics" templates, which contains navboxes by country for articles related to the country, you will find that no articles of the type "xxxxxx in country" use {{Infobox Country}}. They either have their own infobox or use no infobox. After briefly going through the links on these "country topic" templates, I found that few types of "topic by country" articles actually have their own infoboxes. However, if you look at Economy of Australia and Education in Israel, for example, they use their own infoboxes - {{Infobox Economy}} and {{Infobox Education}}, respectively.

On my second point, you should also note that neither of the aforementioned infoboxes contain fields for superfluous information (unrelated to the topic at hand). There are no fields for map, flag, capital, population, area, or density in these infoboxes. The purpose of individual "topic by country" articles is not to provide random education about the country, but about the topic as it exists within the country. Yes, I agree that Wikipedia needs internationalization, but the way to go about this is removing US-biases from existing and not injecting irrelevant information into other articles.

Regarding fields relating to EMS, you could make the argument that area and population (or just density) are relevant; however they are meaningless if you do not also provide some information on number of EMS units and how the area is covered, which is the information relevant to the article.

I do like the infobox Sebastian scha. has created with some tweaks. (I hope you don't mind me making some changes to it on your page.) I don't think the "This article is part of the series: Emergency medical services" section is appropriate for an infobox. Typically, the "series" templates are separate side-navigation boxes. I'm not really a fan of the side navboxes, and am not sure we need one here, since we already have {{EMSworld}} and {{Emergency medicine}} - but this is a matter that should be discussed separately. Also, some of the fields need clarification, as I am not sure what type of information should go in Organisations and Authorities...we need to keep in mind that not all fields apply to all countries. Finally, each infobox should have the ability to have one image. Rather than calling this field map, I'd simply call it image. If a map or flag of the country is the best representation of EMS in that country, then that could be the image representative of the article. --Scott Alter 18:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are absolutly welcome to edit this infobox, therefor it's in a usersubpage. My thought was -- as you noted correctly -- to have a combined navsidebox and infobox, to use it in more aticles than EMS in country. This is only a presentation, if you -- as the project -- don't like it, so don't set it in use. Discuss it and get a consensus. I really hope, I could help. Greetings. Sebastian scha. (talk) 20:15, 7 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently we agree on some things, but not on others. I have absolutely no objection to the development of an infobox that is specific to this application. Being relatively new to Wikipedia, I don't know how to do that yet, and so was attempting to use an existing infobox as an improvised solution. If we can agree on a format, I'd be pleased to work with you both on this! With respect to the country information, the information that we are providing is, in each case, location-specific. Part of my point is that the information is NOT generic...it is location specific. As a result, being location specific 'up front' is appropriate. With respect to 'editing out' the U.S. centric content...I wish you the best of luck with that approach. In most cases, even though admittedly unintentional, it is so pervasive that I think that in many cases the best that the rest of us can do is 'wave the flag' a little bit and hope for the best. It even occurs on the Talk pages...I read one argument about the capitalization of the term Emergency medical service...along with one comment that 'it is capitalized...period...its the same the whole world over!' Let's just disregard the actual fact, that apart from the U.S. and Canada almost NO ONE calls it EMS ('ambulance service' in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and 'Rettungsdienst' (transl. Rescue service) in the German-speaking world, SAMU in the French-speaking world, and SAMUR in an increasing amount of the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking world. My point is that it is such a HUGE imprint on the content of the whole site that erasing it through editing is almost impossible. Furthermore, I have corrected any number of added 'corrections' on the EMS by country pages from well meaning Americans who hadn't yet digested the fact that they were reading about EMS somewhere ELSE, and decided to correct what they percieved to be 'factual errors' but which were, in reality, simply the way that other countries do things. As far as the content goes, I have been searching....hard....for the appropriate relevant information to include in the infobox for useful comparisons. To date, all that I have been able to find is population, area, and density. Where a number is available for items like the number of units, it is generally included in the text of the article (see Israel). I have been digging through the WHO and a bunch of other high quality sites, attempting to find useful tools for comparison. There are some indicators of the effectiveness of the overall health care system (infant mortality, physician/population ratios, % GNP spent on health), which as a med student I'm sure YOU'LL understand (as do I), but I'm not sure that the readers likely to be interested in this site will understand them, or why I would provide them. The types of information that you were suggesting, such as response times, etc., simply doesn't appear to be gathered consistently by any reliable source. I have attempted to identify a standard for each place, and have included that in the article text, along with any relevant observations on successful compliance. My feeling is that there is simply too much variation on a local level to provide national reporting for these items, and even when a standard is published, providers only rarely achieve consistent compliance. Rant concluded! That being said, I think that we CAN work together to provide a truly useful tool here. We just need to agree on what is relevant, and on consistent sources for the information. The infobox isn't the problem (although I recognize that you aren't a fan of them) it's simply a tool, and if it's used incorrectly in this case, let's find a way to use it correctly! When I look at how articles are assessed in terms of quality, a LOT of it relates to their practical use as a potential research tool. The internet is absolutely FULL of 'aren't we great?' websites by EMS systems, but has very little in the way of good, consistent research resources. The standards for 'B' and 'A' articles specifically mention their usefulness for research purposes. My original vision of this (whether you share it or not) was to create something that would be of practical use to a college or university-level paramedic student trying to write a paper comparing and contrasting how EMS is delivered in various parts of the world. I still think that this is a valid approach to the whole project, and to the articles individually. You have your own expertise, and significantly more experience on Wikipedia than I have, and I, as a Senior EMS Planner (as well as being a paramedic) in a major metropolitan EMS system in the 'real world' and as an academic and teacher, but with less Wikipedia experience than you, have what I can bring to the 'feast'. I think that by working together, we might be able to accomplish some really high quality stuff, both for the Task Force and for our colleagues outside of Wikipedia. I'll look forward to working with you. Cheers. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 13:56, 8 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Participants

I've started a participants list for the EMS project, so members can easily find people that have specific EMS interests. I've added a few names as a "starter list", but participants should feel free to add or subtract their own names as they see fit. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:15, 13 October 2008 (UTC) (who is not watching this page)[reply]

Assessment of Good Samaritan law

I've lowered the WPMED-wide importance rating on Good Samartian law from "high" to "mid", and I wanted to point out for sort of general information that a mid-importance rating is being a bit generous (although not unreasonably). WPMED's focus is officially on diseases and conditions, and not the infrastructure that makes treating patients possible. Laws are specifically named as normally being of low importance to the broader project. The project-wide importance scale can be found here if you're ever interested.

Importantly, this task force's own importance can be, and should be, set to whatever you all want, even if that means an article is top-importance for one and low-importance for the other. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:44, 6 November 2008 (UTC) (who is watching this page for a few days, so you can reply here if you have questions or comments)[reply]

Navboxes

I KNOW that there are a couple of people who lurk around here who love Navboxes! So far, we have just the two, but I find myself thinking that if someone wished to take on the project, they could come up with a system that would make the Task Force's articles that much more accessible to anyone looking for them. The First Aid Wikiproject has done a bit of this, and it's worth a look (at least as a starting point). So far, we have EMS by country and Paramedics by country. I'm thinking that we could have a box for vehicles and standards, a box for specific equipment, a box for specific procedures, a box for specialty certifications, and a box for the articles that have been put up by the various EMS provider organizations. With the whole group clustered under the Task Force, it would allow us to move items from all over the place (where they currently are...lol) to a neat organized accessible set of articles and information. By the way, just for the record, I WOULD do it myself, if I knew how! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:51, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to have some navboxes made, the most useful thing you can do is to start a list of what you want in them. Something like:

Kinds of emergency vehicles

Regulation for vehicles

Important other something about vehicles

and perhaps a suggested title. Then all we need is a technically adept person to turn it into a template; they wouldn't even have to know anything about the subject area. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:43, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Navboxes are a good thing, but I am not sure what to include that won't completely overlap with {{Emergency medicine}} or {{First aid}}. If anyone has ideas, WhatamIdoing's suggestion of creating a list is a good place to start. --Scott Alter 00:51, 15 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Relocating a series of progress reports

Apparently, I have been spending a great deal of time updating one member of the Task Force on my activities, when I should have been updating all of you. First of all, please accept my apologies for my misunderstanding of where this stuff was to go, and for leaving the rest of you 'out of the loop', so to speak. Next, I have taken the liberty of copying all of the relevant content from the updates from the other location, and will now post them here. These are what follows. Once again, sorry for the misunderstanding. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:54, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paramedics in Germany

I just completed a general 'tidy up' of Paramedics in Germany. It is already rated at 'B'. I had forgotten that I had already worked on it, so not much work required. I have asked both WinnieMD and Sebastian to see what they can do about finding us some photos that are within guidelines. I have no shortage of vehicle photos, but I would like to be able to add shots of German paramedics doing their work. I've also invited Sebastian and re-invited Winnie to join the Task Force. This takes the work on Emergency medical services around the world and Paramedics around the world as far as I can. I won't touch either Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom or Paramedics in the United Kingdom, because every time I do, someone reverts the work, and I don't feel like getting involved in an edit war. Those two articles are essentially lists, and are rated as 'Stubs', but apparently someone likes them that way, so who am I to argue? The end result is that so far, I have either written or made major revisions to 22 articles within the Task Force mandate. One of those has achieved GA, another is about to be put forward for GA (being copyedited now), and of the balance, there is nothing below a 'B', and very little below 'B' 'mid'. There are a couple of other projects that I'm contemplating (such as New Zealand) but those are awaiting responses and permissions. I'd like to be able to add a meaningful article on the KKK-1822 standard, and I'd like to start to create a section on EMS vehicles as well. I'm trying to get Sebastian involved because he loves navboxes, and I think it would be nice to ultimately tie all of the Task Forces articles together using a good coordinated collection of navboxes for ease of navigation and reference. I'm also thinking that with him helping to develop a Task Force specific Infobox for some of our articles (primarily Ems and Paramedics around the world at this point, but who knows, potentially some form of 'branding' for Task Force articles). In the meantime, if there is anything else specific that you'd like me to have a look at, let me know. Otherwise, I will just start grabbing stuff at random. It's a shame about the British articles, though.Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paramedics in Canada

Paramedics in Canada is now completely redone and brought up to standard. Sent to WPMED for re-eval. Was a 'Stub', should be a 'B'. Still waiting for word on Australia. I'll probably start Germany next week, if Winnie and Sebastian have been able to find and upload some stuff. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:28, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paramedics in Australia

This article has been thoroughly rewritten and reorganized. Tons of content, images, references, links added. I think I'm finally mastering the Style Guide! This has been submitted for re-evaluation as a 'B' article...we'll see where that goes! Not sure what I'm going to take on next. Cheers!Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:17, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Still waiting for the eval on Paramedics in Australia. I've decided that my next project will be Paramedics in Canada. In addition, I have asked both WinnieMD and Sebastian to help gather content and upload photos so that I can do Paramedics in Germany next. Given that there ARE no Paramedics in France, I will be proposing later today that the article be deleted. I have also sent requests to Wellington Free Ambulance and St John Ambulance New Zealand for permission to use information and upload photos from their websites. These will be used to take the stub articles about these two services to a much higher level, and then to create Emergency medical services in New Zealand and Paramedics in New Zealand. I'll let you know how I make out with the permissions. I've done this a couple of times now, and the permissions are usually pretty quick to come, and the services pleased to receive the attention. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:26, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paramedics in the United States

I've given this article a good workover, and essentially redone it so that it is more consistent with the other work. I believe that as it stands now, it should receive a 'B', and it has been submitted for re-eval. Haven't heard anything on 9-1-1 yet. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 17:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Found out that the article requires additional work (primarily copyediting) which I am currently working on. Also 9-1-1 made B High Top. I've asked Chaoticfluffy to give it a thorough copyedit prior to submitting it for GA status. Just keeping you posted. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 15:35, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay...Paramedics in the United States is now a 'B Low Mid'. Chaoticfluffy has taken on the copyeditng for 9-1-1, prior to submission for a GA nomination. Not sure what I'm going to take on next....probably something else from the Paramedics queue. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 21:55, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

9-1-1 and Good Samaritan law

Be advised that Air ambulance is now a 'B' Mid. 9-1-1 is awaiting re-eval, but hasn't been done yet. I have just finished a complete rework of Good Samaritan law, and submitted that for eval as well. I think both are likely to get 'B' ratings, 9-1-1 as 'B Top'. Just to let you know, I am going to be disappearing offline for about two weeks. I have a teaching commitment at a university in another province, and so will be over on the Atlantic coast, enjoying the fresh air and the waves. I'll let you know when I'm back. I may get a chance to look in on things, but won't likely have time to do much editing, between lecture prep and reading papers! In the meantime, you might want to give some thought to where I can help out most as a next step. See you when I get back. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 16:54, 17 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just letting you know, 9-1-1 is interim rated as a C High, the only thing apparently holding it back from a B is additional references being added. I will attempt to do this when I get back, or anyone else who wants to try is welcome to jump in. Also, to my complete surprise, Good Samaritan law has been nominated for GA status by someone over at WPLAW! Any support that you can manage to drum up for that would also be appreciated. See you when I get back! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:50, 21 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to let you know...I'm back! A couple of weeks of waves and fresh salt air was wonderful...even at this time of year! Well, Good Samaritan law got its GA status (pardon my crowing!). I've reworked and expanded 9-1-1, and resubmitted it for 'B' consideration. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 17:37, 6 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Air ambulance and 9-1-1

Just to let you know, Air ambulance is complete and has been re-evaluated to a 'B' Mid. I have just completed a total rewrite of 9-1-1. Turned out to be more work than I thought at first. I'm pretty satisfied with the result, and I've submitted it for re-eval as well. I'm hoping that it will get a 'B' also. Look this stuff over and let me know what you think. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 17:55, 16 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

U.S. and CEN

Just to let you know, Emergency medical services in the United States, and CEN 1789 (the article on standards for European ambulances) have both been re-evaluated in the B Mid range. I am waiting to hear from User:Owain.Davies regarding a proposed collaboration to bring the U.K. article up to the standard, but apart from that, all of the articles in the EMS by country category are now at a B Mid or higher. Actually, we've succeeded in moving a total of 16 articles, most initially rated as Start or Stub, to the B Mid or higher range. The project is going well from my point of view. User:Chaoticfluffy who turns out to be a first class copyeditor and an EMT, has been invited to join the taskforce, and has accepted. My next project is going to be trying to pull together the assortment of stubs and starts related to air ambulance, and put them into a single, well written article. I'm thinking that after that is done, I may start to see what can be done to clean up and improve 9-1-1. Just so you're aware, after this week, I may not be online much for a couple of weeks...I have an out of province teaching assignment to fulfill. If I disappear, don't worry! I'll also leave note on my userpage. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 10:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency Medical Dispatcher

Hi Medicellis! Your article is now official rescued from deletion, expanded, photos added, and fully cited. It is now rated as 'B' High. Hope you like it. Happy to be of service! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey, wow very good job. Makes my original article seem like human feces....lol. Thanks for the help Medicellis (talk) 18:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

United States

Emergency medical services in the United States is now essentially complete. It has been completely reworked, and the level raised substantially. I have also gone over all of the articles that I've worked on to ensure that they meet the MoS standards, as I understand them. I have also done some tweaking to CEN 1789. Both articles are now resubmitted for reeval at a 'B' level. Someone managed to sort out the problem with the Emergency medical services in Australia linking, and it has now been evaluated at a 'B' level. This will mean that all of the articles that I have worked on will be at the 'B' level, including your target project, Emergency medical services. The only article from the original set that remains is the Emergency medical services in the United Kingdom article, and frankly, I'm still a bit reluctant to touch it after the last time, despite the fact that it's rated as a 'stub'. Looking at it in a LOT of detail, there doesn't seem to be much there other than lists (and I distinctly remember being told that Wikipedia was NOT a collection of lists). I'll have to give it some thought, and decide whether to 'take the bull by the horns', or just continue to ignore it and move on to the Paramedic by country articles. Oh well! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 17:33, 2 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Australia

EMS in Australia is now essentially complete, and has been submitted for evaluation. Once again, a little problem, in that there is no 'Emergency medical services in Australia' title...that points to 'Paramedics in Australia'; a whole different thing! I'd like to rename the article and take the link away from 'Paramedics' in the interest of consistency for the series of articles, but I don't yet know how to do this. If you could help, that would be great. I am also awaiting reevals on Netherlands and Canada, which should bring them up to a 'B' also. The only two articles in the Emergency medical services by Country group that I haven't touched yet are the U.S. and the U.K.. I guess I'll be starting on those next. In the meantime, of the 12 articles in the series, 9 are 'B' level, and the other three have been submitted for 'B' level. Just letting you know my progress...but actually, I'm pretty pleased!!!Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:06, 30 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Israel

Emergency Medical Services in Israel is now essentially complete, and has been submitted for evaluation. I've run into one problem on this; as you know, the titles are case-sensitive, and the title used in the other articles 'Emergency medical services in...' is currently directed to an article entitled 'Magen David Adom'. Now MDA DOES run the EMS system in Israel, but this article involves a whole bunch of other stuff, including their blood bank operation, the international arguments over their symbol, their relationship with the ICRC, etc.. The article is useful and should be kept, but the new article is ACTUALLY ABOUT EMS in Israel. I'm not really sure how to sort this out, and I'm hoping that you can help with this, just so we have some consistency. I won't get a chance to look at this at all for the next several days, and when I do get back, my next project will be writing 'Emergency medical services in Australia' and then getting that up to a 'B'. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 17:20, 26 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hong Kong

Emergency medical services in Hong Kong is now essentially complete. It turned out quite well, and I have submitted it for evaluation. I'll probably look to see what can be done with Israel next, then Australia. I'm leaving U.S. and U.K. until last. Both are still currently rated as 'stubs'. I'm reluctant to touch the U.K. article, because the couple of times I've started on it to bring it into line with the 'B' rated articles (which was my goal for ALL of the 'country' articles, and we're GETTING THERE...lol) someone keeps undoing my edits. Obviously while it isn't rated very highly, they apparently like it the way it is...dunno what to do about that! The other challenge will be doing a generic U.S. article that doesn't manage to upset those in each of the 246 models of service delivery and levels of certification! Oh well...I'll get to those two eventually. Cheers Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:11, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Canada

Canada is now complete and submitted for reeval. I believe that both it and the Netherlands article should receive 'B' ratings. Haven't decided which one to push on with next. Cheers Emrgmgmtca (talk) 12:18, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Netherlands

Well, Norway is complete and resubmitted for reeval. I'm thinking that it meets the 'B' requirements. I picked up some useful information and so have added a new article, 'Emergency medical services in the Netherlands' which I think is also likely to get a 'B', and so has been submitted. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More Progress

Well, I've managed to get both Emergency medical services in Italy and in France promoted to 'B' articles. Canada and Norway will be next! I've also added a whole section on Models of Care, suitably cited and all...to the Main Emergency medical services article. I don't know where you're hiding...lol...but I don't know how to get anything past a 'B', and I think we're ready to nominate the main article for Good Article status. Let me know what you think... Cheers Emrgmgmtca (talk) 18:15, 19 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Progress

Hi again! Well, the South African EMS people seem pleased. Internally, the South Africa article has been reclassified to a 'B', and I have just finished expanding and extensive referencing of Emergency medical services in France, and have submitted that for reclassification as well. On reflection, I think that I am going to focus on getting the existing stuff all up to a 'B' before I push on and attempt to write Hong Kong or improve the other articles that I haven't touched yet. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 15:07, 18 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

South Africa

Just to let you know, I managed to contact the Head of Training at West Cape Metro EMS in Capetown, and he has provided a whole set of photos (with licenses) for the article, which I have added. There is one odd-sized photo, that I don't know how to resize. He has also agreed to check the article for errors, omissions, etc.. They were pleased to be asked. This article is great...the best so far. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 20:23, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency medical services in South Africa

Just to let you know, the edit and rewrite of the above article is now substantially complete. It could do with some photos to pretty it up, but usable South African EMS photos are a little hard to find. You know, it might not be a bad task force project for someone to start contacting various EMS systems around the world and asking them to upload appropriate photos (medics working, vehicles) from their system, along with the appropriate permissions for their use. That would provide us with a great deal of new and fresh material for article illustrations. The next article that I will take on will be Hong Kong. You will also be pleased to note that all of the EMS by country pages that I have done have been classified, and have all gotten a 'C' rating, with the exception of Germany, which received a 'B'. The challenge with getting most of them above a 'C' is typically the citations, and the challenge there is language. My intent is to keep adding to all of them, until a 'B' minimum is achieved for each. Since all of these feed into the main page, in my opinion the higher quality they are, the higher the main page will be rated, in terms of the information that it provides access to. Treated collectively, they would already provide a pretty darn good reference source for a paramedic or EMT student doing a project comparing EMS systems, and it wlll get even better! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 09:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency medical services

Just to let you know, I think that I've done pretty much everything that I can do with that article. It's certainly clearer and cleaner, and it reads a LOT better. I'm still waiting though, for someone to kill those dead citations, since they go to a reflist, and I have no idea how to edit one of those. Once that has happened, I think that it's probably ready for GA nomination. Let me know what you think. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 09:56, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

References and See Also

I have validated or invalidated all of the References. These were on a reference list, which I don't know how to edit yet. I have attached a complete list of findings on the discussion page, asked for someone to make the listed edits, and updated the 'to do' list. I also took the liberty of validating all of the See Also links, and they are all fine. Cheers. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 14:21, 12 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CEN 1789

Just to advise; I have just created my own very first article. CEN 1789 discusses the European standard for ambulance design and performance (similar to KKK 1822). All in all, I think it has come out pretty well, but as always, I'd value your opinion. It is linked to the EMS by country pages for several of the European countries, and to our Group. Also, as you requested, I have started looking at the main Emergency medical services page. I have generally cleaned up, edited for flow, expanded, and added citations to the Strategies for delivering care section, and I have removed the tag and entered my work on the list in the discussions page. Just wanted to let you know. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 17:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency Medical Service in Norway

Just to let you know, the Norway page is now pretty much complete. It would benefit from additional input from Norwegian users (do we HAVE Norwegian users???) and there are a couple of really nice photos that I've found on the web that I'm not really sure how to get approval to use. At any rate, this page has now been expanded a bit, some citations and references added (and the tag removed), and reformatted to follow the same template as the others that I've done (and I think I'm getting better at following the MoS). Let me know what you think!!! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 14:06, 8 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency Medical Service in Italy

Hello again!!! Just to let you know, I now realize how importantly the Manual of Style is considered here, and I am trying to ensure that I use it correctly. It is somewhat different from the writing styles that I am accustomed to (primarily MLA and APA), so I don't expect to get it all down properly, right away. Please feel free to look over my work, and if you see any 'bloopers' or have any suggestions for improvement, please let me know. In the meantime, the "Emergency medical service in Italy" page is substantially complete, and hopefully we will begin to receive contributions from other users to fill in any gaps. I am now moving on to "Emergency medical service in Germany" as my next editing project. I will start out by getting the spelling, grammar and punctuation right for English-speaking readers in the existing article. Once that is complete, I will probably attempt to rearrange the material into the format that I have used on the other EMS by country pages. I have some other stuff happening in my real life (yes...lol...I DO have one!) so completing this is probably going to take a couple of days. Cheers. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:43, 4 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency medical service in France

I've just finished a major re-write of this page for content, accuracy, spelling and grammar. Let me know what you think. I've taken the liberty of using exactly the same heading format for this page that I used for the Canadian page, with an intent of re-doing all of the country pages to precisely the same format, for ease of both reference and navigation. (I've decided that I'm going to do the country pages, both EMS and Paramedic, first) Hopefully, others will jump in and add additional information, and I will keep it on my watch list. BTW I couldn't believe it, but some idiot actually went and vandalized the Paramedic page! The bot caught it and undid it. Do you get a LOT of that sort of thing around here? Just curious... Ah well! On to the next one!!! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:39, 3 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Emergency medical service in Canada

Hi Once Again, I've just taken the time to completely rewrite this piece, expanding it from a stub to a half decent article, correcting for spelling, grammar, content and accuracy, and ensuring that everything is properly cited. I've also added a series of links to other Wikipedia pages for Canadian EMS services, and another list of links that are appropriate to those seeking more information...typically paramedic associations and that sort of thing. I will give this some more thought and see whether there is anything else that I might want to add, and any usable pictures to illustrate, but all in all, I'm pretty happy with the result! I'd welcome your feedback when you have a chance to have a look. What I propose to do next is to just wander around all of the Task Force associated pages, and to either clean up or rewrite to raise the standard, one at a time, as I see the opportunity. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 14:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Paramedic

I think that I'm pretty much done with the Paramedic page. I've done whatever I could to sort out the problems, make the information useful, accessible, and high quality. It's also sufficiently broad in scope now to provide a fairly accurate representation, and I have cleaned up the spelling, punctuation, grammar, and general 'flow'. To be honest, I'm quite pleased with it, but I would welcome your feedback on the finished result. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 14:24, 27 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very impressed with the quality of the paramedic article, very nicely written and expanded! I will take some time/effort over the next several times and see if I can help add (which I highly doubt) and any other issues. I would love your help with expanded/copy-edit of Emergency medical services, which I hope to make a good article (GA). Again thanks for your help! Medicellis (talk) 03:35, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Medical Director

Be advised that I am currently undertaking a major rewrite and expansion of the Medical Director article. There will be some challenges associated with this, since the role operates so differently in various places, but I am digging out the information and relevant citations. Anyone who wants to help out with this project, please feel free to jump in. One thing that we could truly use is some decent photos that are both relevant to the article and meet Wikipedia copyright standards. If you can help out, please do. Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 10:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is this just an EMS issue? I thought that many other kinds of organizations also had medical directors. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:06, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While there are lots of organizations that use the term Medical Director (it's pretty generic), in this case the article was created specifically to address the role of medical control in EMS by this task force. As I see it, there are two options here. The first would be to leave it as is, and if other people want to add other examples, we could either grow it into a truly generic article or split off the new contributions into case specific articles, OR, we could simply change the title of the article to 'EMS medical director' and call it a day! What do you think? Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:11, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This article is now as complete as I can get it. I've noted how the role operates in each of the service delivery models. Extensive inline cites. 30+ good quality references added and validated. Some photo images for illustration purposes would be helpful, but the only ones that I can find are from the Franco-German model, and that would create a 'lopsided' impression in the article. If you can help out with good photos, please do so.Emrgmgmtca (talk) 14:31, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

9-1-1

This article has been submitted for GA review. Many thanks to Chaoticfluffy for a great deal of work in copyediting. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 14:31, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Progress report

Triage and Medical director are now complete and submitted for review (Medical director for re-eval). Paramedics in Germany and Paramedics in Australia have received some suggested changes, and have been submitted for re-eval for 'B' status. 9-1-1 was unsuccessful in its GA nomination, and I have a list of suggestions from the evaluator that I will be working on before resubmission, as my next project. I would welcome any help that anyone would care to offer. Of particular concern is the shortage of decent references for the Paramedics in Germany article. There IS stuff out there, but it all seems to be in German, which I don't read very well. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.Emrgmgmtca (talk) 14:41, 5 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Progress report

Triage and Medical director are now both 'B' High articles. Paramedics in Germany and Paramedics in Australia are still awaiting re-evaluation. I will begin the necessary work on 9-1-1, but given my current workload, it will probably be next week before I get started. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:05, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Medical director is currently rated C-class, although B class is probably justifiable. I thought I'd wait to see what the ultimate location of the page was before changing the assessment.

Paramedics in Germany is insufficiently sourced for B class (particularly under ==Training==: that information had to come from somewhere!).

Paramedics in Australia would also like to have more sources under ==Clinical scope of practice==.

-- WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:40, 11 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have asked WinnieMD to take on the task of finding additional references for Paramedics in Germany. They will be in German (no further English language references available) and I'm not sure how useful they will be to English speaking Wikipedians, but if that's what it takes...smiles. Paramedics in Australia has had an additional six references placed under ==Clinical scope of practice==, so there is now at least one reference for each section. Ready for re-eval. Can we consider just changing Medical director to EMS Medical Director? Otherwise it is going to end up being taken in a direction that was never intended. We weren't looking for an article on generic Medical Directors, but one on the role of Medical Directors in EMS systems. I'm not sure how to change the title. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 12:59, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And I have read the request and will answer openly to everyone. I find myself in some sort of dilemma here: Of course I'd like to contribute and I appreciate the level of professionalism wich is applied here. However, I can not bring myself to cope with some of Wikipedias ROE. Granted, sources must be verifiable. Granted, no full article should consist only of one or a few people's experiences. Granted, a certain degree of scientific methods should be employed in the writing of every article. But I will draw a line here. There are zero to none sources to cite in English, all sources to back up the Paramedics/ EMS in Germany articles are in German. That fact, IMHO, renders these sources obsolete to the general usership of Wikipedia and citing more German sources would be superfluous, since only a fraction of users would ever be able to verify the claims made there. I can provide with more sources and when asked to, will do, but some things are just a fact. As an example, noone will argue that an anaesthetist is better qualified for endotracheal intubation than a surgeon (hence the majority of emergency physicians beeing anaesthetists), even if there where no research to back this up. It is just like a plumber doing better ductwork than a bakerman or the night beeing darker than the day. Regarding the articles I intend to say that some things are written out of personal experience wich I cannot prove by any means but a polygraph test or bringing in other German EMS personnel.

Once more, no offence to all of you and your efforts, but I am done contributing when bound to such strict rules. Winnie-MD (talk) 08:09, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WinnieMD, I really wish that you would reconsider. To be honest, there are times when I find the rules a bit frustrating myself, but without a single set of standards, chaos would ensue. From my point of view, I have doubts about the usefulness of adding references in German to an English language Wiki, but the simple fact is that we need a single, recognized way of verifying the facts, and that is the only one that currently seems to be available. If someone wants the research material badly enough, they will find someone to translate for them. In the meantime, you have a language skill that clearly brings something to the mix. Right now, English speaking medics know very little about how things are done in Germany, Switzerland or Austria, and I suspect that apart from the misrepresentations of us in the media, the reverse is also true. Not only can you find, read and translate information from German language references for us, you also have the ability to explain the German system to those of us who are unfamiliar with it, and to take the work that the rest of us are doing and translate it for Wikipedia: German. By doing that, you allow all of us to learn about one another, and to understand one another a little better. That's an extremely valuable contribution, and one of the reasons why we invited both you and Sebastian to become members of our little task force. Without the contributions of people like you, the work that we are doing is virtually doomed to have an almost exclusively American perspective. Please reconsider. We need you.Emrgmgmtca (talk) 12:17, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Google has a translator as does babblefish. It is not perfect but makes foreign languages understanable.--Doc James (talk) 13:51, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Winnie-MD, there are no rules that require English language sources. The actual rules are:

(1) We should have reliable sources in our articles.

(2) If there are equally good sources written in English, then use those in preference to non-English sources. Otherwise, use the best source.

We've already determined that there are no good sources in English for the remaining facts in Paramedics in Germany. We'd love to have any good source added. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:03, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

EMS vs EM

This task group seems to be primarily about EMS. Not so much EM content. I have been adding to EM topic. Wondering how to add more topics to the EM catergories. Just started a page on Procedural sedation.--Doc James (talk) 14:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Doc, and welcome! Up to this point, virtually all of the focus, and all of the input has been from EMS types, past and present, with a bit of assistance from the main body of Wikiproject Medicine. That does not mean by any means that emergency physicians aren't welcome, nor do we expect them to focus their discussion on EMS-related issues. From our perspective, there is lots that we can learn from you EM types, and who knows? We might even know a trick or two of our own! It would appear that the method that works best for building a presence here is to simply produce articles that will be useful to others. If you have friends that are so inclined, get them involved as well. The more content there is here for emergency physicians to read, the more likely they are to come here. Once they start to come, they start to contribute, and before you know it, the whole thing begins to take on a momentum of its own! Take a look at the Style Manual WP:MOS to be sure that you are on the right track stylistically, but don't worry too much at first. We have an excellent editor in WhatamIdoing?, who edits a LOT of stuff for the entire Medicine project, and at least one excellent resident copyeditor. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask! Cheers! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 15:57, 17 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Status Report

Just to let you know, owain.davies and I have just completed a collaborative effort to upgrade ABC (medicine). Thanks to some outstanding work on owain's part, the article has improved dramatically, and has been referred to Chaoticfluffy for copyediting. Once this is complete, it is my intent to submit this article for GA review. Everybody's input would be welcome. If those of you on the Task Force could please look this article over and let us know what you think, that would be terrific! Thanks. Oh, and of course, happy holidays to one and all! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 12:27, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've wikilinked the article for reader convenience. Hopefully that will make people more likely to click the link and take a look. :-)

--WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:36, 23 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome Poland

Happy holidays everyone! Please note the addition of a new article...Emergency medical services in Poland! This is the first of what are hoped to be many such articles reflecting local reality. As this process goes on, it is hoped that our international colleagues, such as Swd, the creator of this one, will begin to bring us articles of interest from their own wikis and will translate our work in order to make it accessible for our colleagues who do not read English. In that manner,we begin to teach one another about ourselves. Please join me in welcoming Swd to our group! Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:54, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The rewrite and expansion of Emergency medical services in Poland is now complete, and awaiting re-evaluation. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 12:17, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hospitals

Miami Valley Hospital has been tagged as belonging to this task force. Do we want to include hospitals? Most of them have an emergency room, and some of them (like this one) are trauma centers, but do we want to work on articles about the hospitals themselves?

There's no hard and fast rule; the decision is entirely up to the members. So if you have an opinion one way or the other, then please let me know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think this task force should cover hospitals or other institutions that provide emergency medical care. I removed the emergency parameters from this article and fixed the importance parameter. You could make the argument that hospitals should belong to all of the WPMED task forces, since most hospitals provide care for all medical problems. The purpose of the task forces is to cover medical content relating to the specific field. Hospitals are too generic to assign to any task force (unless there would be a separate hospital task force of WPMED, if there is any interest). --Scott Alter 00:10, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think that we run into this problem from time to time. It would appear that in all aspects of emergency medicine, as in EMS, there are apparently no 'underachievers'. Personally, I'm not really sure that the individual EMS systems belong here, and THAT would eliminate dozens of pages. I tried another approach in the Air ambulance article, by creating a heading for 'Other notable air ambulance services'. Now that everyone has jumped in and included what amounts in many cases to advertising for their own preferred 'brand' of air ambulance service, I have posted a note on the Talk page, advising people to explain why each particular service is noteworthy, either with a short explanation supported by references, or by a link to a properly written and cited article, and I've provided a timeframe for doing this. Very shortly, I am going to begin deleting services which have not demonstrated their noteworthiness. It seems to me that this particular test could and probably should be applied to hospitals, and also to individual EMS providers; if they can't demonstrate what makes them noteworthy, they probably shouldn't be here. Just my thoughts. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:01, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers‎

Does anyone know anything about Hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers‎ (emergency blood substitutes)? If so, the article's a mess, and an editor has requested help. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:25, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you are right it is a mess. Added some balance and removed what appears to be almost advertising.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:23, 22 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Progress Report

Emergency bleeding control has now been completely rewritten and referenced, and has been submitted for re-evaluation from 'C' to 'B'. 9-1-1 has been completely referenced, as was suggested by the reviewer, and appears to have stabilized nicely. As a result, it has been submitted for GA re-assessment. Medical director, Triage, and ABC (medicine) have been nominated for GA status. Your support for these projects would be greatly appreciated, and also many thanks to Chaoticfluffy, who has done a great deal of copyediting. Emrgmgmtca (talk) 11:12, 4 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

v t e Emergency medical services around the world
Emergency medical services by country	Austria Australia Belgium Brazil Canada Finland France Germany Hong Kong Iceland Ireland Israel Italy Netherlands New Zealand Norway Palestine Poland Portugal Russia Spain South Africa Sri Lanka Ukraine United Kingdom United States
Paramedics by country	Australia Canada Germany Ireland United Kingdom United States