SCSRC’s 4th Annual Pandemic Flu Ventilator Summit a Huge Success! by Scott Lane

John Wilgis

Nearly 50 Respiratory Therapists from around the state were in attendance at Friday’s Summit that was held at the South Carolina Hospital Association in Columbia. John Wilgis, MBA, RRT, Director for Emergency Services for the State of Florida gave two presentations regarding information and guidance for establishing a RT Volunteer Workforce. Deborah Derrick with SCDHEC gave a presentation on SCSERVE and Rich Branson, Med, RRT, FAARC from the University of Cincinnati also gave two presentations. Rich’s first presentation focused on results from the AARC’s National Ventilator Survey and the second focused on New Ventilator Choices for Mass Casualty Care. Scott Lane ended the conference with a presentation on the SCSRC’s plans for establishing a subcommittee under the Disaster Preparedness Committee to develop a guidance document for hospitals to use when they’re considering adding RT Volunteers to their workforce. Connie and I want to give special thanks to Scott Simms for helping with registration during the event. Copies of the presentations given by John, Rich and Deborah are listed below.

The copies of the presentations have been converted to PDF and are available for download. To download, right click and select Save Link As or Save Target As (depending on your browser):

• Emergency Volunteers and Hospital Training
• Emergency Preparedness and Volunteer Response
• New Options for Mass Casualty Care
• South Carolina’s Statewide Emergency Register of Volunteers (SCSERV)
• The National Ventilator Survey and the SNS