Laserfiche WebLink
Mr. Honda — AMR is probably the biggest ground ambulance in the Country. Spoke to one of the local AMR <br />managers and he cannot recall any of these pumps breaking down. Their primary mission in the state especially <br />on Oahu and on the Big Island is all transfers. They're dealing with lots of medications and if patients are <br />getting transferred it's something serious. Kauai and Maui do the 911 service and transfers as well. <br />Mr. Kanae — We take AMR's word heavily. They use the pumps regularly as compared to us, we use it a lot Iess <br />frequently and it's something we need to rely on with the medications. <br />Mr. Honda - AMR has a good thorough evaluation of their equipment. In one county, they are running several <br />hundreds of ambulances a day. Every equipment they go with, is used nationwide, and they do their due <br />diligence. This is the reason why we are leaning towards the Sapphire. <br />Ms. Sako — The other pumps you looked at; were they all like the Sapphire? Ruggedized and prehospital? <br />Mr. Kanae — Yes. The Nimbus was much smaller, and the cost was much less, but overall looking at both costs, <br />in the long run the Sapphire is cheaper. <br />Mr. Honda — The Nimbus could only put out medication at 200 cc per hour. We must give 600 cc, it's not fast <br />enough. <br />Mr. Sewake ­ As far as ease of use. Are they comparable? <br />Mr. Kanae — The Sapphire's interface is user friendly. It's easy, our paramedics are familiar with the process, <br />it's push buttons, starts with a system check, has a catalog of different medications/formulas/concentrations we <br />carry, it's redundant, the process is simple and has a couple double-checks. It doesn't eliminate medication <br />errors, but it greatly reduces it. You must go through a check screen at the end to be sure we are giving the <br />correct amount and type of meds and from there you can start inducing medication to the patient. The Sapphire <br />is much easier to use then the Alaris. It's newer technology, the screen is better, easy to operate in the sunlight, <br />and easy to operate with wet gloves on. <br />Mr. Honda — When we are using these it's because it's a serious to critical case and not your average call. <br />Mr. Kanae — We like the redundancy; the stress level is extremely high already. Having it all laid out with it <br />being easy to use and read. Helps reduce the possibility of any medication error. <br />Ms. Faulkner -Inouye The old equipment could administer three medications and the new one only one, <br />correct? <br />Mr. Honda — Yes. <br />Mr. Kanae - We did look at similar multi -channel pumps, but the problem was cost. The Sapphire is approx. <br />$2,000 and multi -channel pumps were running from $5,000 - $7,500. In equivalent version, the multi -channel <br />cost $5,000 so it's cheaper to go with two single -channels. <br />It is nicer when transporting, having multiple drips because there's less tubing and less equipment, but the <br />problem is having a single brain for three -channels. If you have any type of equipment failure, you don't have a <br />backup for the one; the one brain controls all three -channels and what we found on these pumps (Alaris) if there <br />was a malfunction, then one channel is not useable. As it got a little bit older, we constantly had one to two <br />channels, sometimes three channels out of commission so it would lock, and we couldn't use it. We would have <br />to send to back to the manufacture. We were running it almost like a single -channel even it was a multi- <br />channel. <br />