Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) – What is the difference? Is there a difference? In this episode, Blair Tyndall and Mike Baker of Client Risk Solutions and Emergency Services Specialist Bryan Duquin discuss the importance of SOGs and SOPs, the differences between them, and ways to develop and integrate these governing documents into your organization’s operations.

From aerials to tires, a comprehensive fleet maintenance program serves to protect the organization’s most valuable assets. In this episode, Blair Tyndall from VFIS Client Risk Solutions and Emergency Services Specialist Bryan Duquin discuss fleet maintenance best practices – what to include and why. 

Forty-four percent of the professional liability claims experienced by VFIS are attributed to patient handling. Mike Baker and Dave Bradley of Client Risk Solutions join Paul Bachtel of VFIS Claims to talk about trends in patient handling claims and provide key insights and suggestions to help emergency service organizations mitigate this exposure.

In this episode, Jake Hoover and Nicole Dugan from VFIS’ Education, Training & Consulting (ETC) department discuss quality assurance (QA) in the emergency services and provide some suggestions for assessing a quality assurance program to help ensure it enhances efficiencies, improves proficiencies and supports continuous improvement.

Documentation helps minimize the impacts of an incident on the responder. It also helps identify risks and implement change to reduce those risks in the future. In this episode, we talk with Bryan Duquin of VFIS and Tracie Young-Brungard of the PA State Fire Commissioner’s Office about the importance of incident documentation for Fire and EMS.

What’s the big picture? All incidents should be investigated to identify trends and benchmark information, find a root cause and build an educational model for the organization. Find out more about incident investigation best practices in this episode with Blair Tyndall and Bryan Duquin of VFIS Client Risk Solutions.

From cell phones to e-bikes - In today’s world, you would be hard pressed to go to a fire where a lithium ion battery is not involved. In this episode, Bobby Salveson from The Haz Mat Guys talks about the dangers of lithium ion batteries and some best practices for emergency service providers to consider when encountering these products at the scene.

www.thehazmatguys.com

How do you put a price on your fire apparatus? In this episode, VFIS Regional VP of Sales, Joe Giorgi, and Sales Executive Scott Cain provide an overview of the agreed value concept and discuss updates to the VFIS policy.

 What is agreed value? (glatfelters.com)

Whether it’s a public assist call or a police response call, emergency service leadership and providers should be concerned about their patient refusal process. In this episode, Paul Bachtel of VFIS Claims joins Mike Baker and Dave Bradley of Client Risk Solutions to discuss patient refusals, including trends and best practices for patient refusal procedures.

Incident rehab serves to identify conditions in personnel that may otherwise go undetected and could lead to serious health conditions, disabilities and death. In this episode, Tracie Young-Brungard, Director of Recruitment and Retention for the PA State Fire Commissioner’s office, discusses how the concept of incident rehab applies to emergency services.