New State Protocol Drafted by St. Luke’s Doc Saves Lives
Dr. Bryan Wilson helped draft Pennsylvania’s prehospital blood administration protocol late in 2023.
He saw its impact this spring.
St. Luke’s Bethlehem EMS fellow Ashley Woodrow was working with Suburban EMS in March when they encountered a patient suffering from hemorrhagic shock. With the patient located in a remote part of Mount Bethel Township, they couldn’t afford to wait until they reached the hospital to complete a blood transfusion.
Following the protocols Wilson championed, Woodrow, a member of the new St. Luke’s EMS Physician Response Team, administered a prehospital blood transfusion that bought time as they transported the patient to St. Luke’s Monroe Campus. By reaching the scene of an emergency in its own specially equipped vehicle, the EMS Physician Response Team assists regional EMS agencies by bringing blood, advanced medications, and a physician to the patient’s side when they need it most.
After the patient received additional blood, he was rushed to the operating room, admitted to the ICU after surgery and ultimately recovered to return home to family.
“For our program, this was our first time working with a partner EMS agency in the community where we were able to administer that blood product,” Wilson said during a recent phone interview. “There’s other programs in the state that had had successful administrations, but this was our first one.
“This patient was super, super sick. The outcome may have been very different if the patient had continued to bleed and had continued to become more hypotensive during the long transport time. By having that blood there, I feel very strongly it made a huge impact on the patient’s outcome, based on the information provided to me from the clinical team that was caring for the patient.”
Wilson had wanted to see blood available for EMS well before the current protocol went into place. When the Commonwealth EMS Medical Director expressed his support for prehospital blood administration a few years ago, Wilson had an opening to pursue a program. He realized there was more support when a St. Luke’s trauma surgeon, Dr. Max Braverman, mentioned blood in EMS during an emergency-room conversation.
When Wilson approached the state medical director, he received the go-ahead to develop a protocol. Wilson and a group of doctors from across Pennsylvania wrote and designed a proposal for a presentation with the state medical advisory committee, which approved the program. It went into effect in late 2023.
Wilson is working with St. Luke’s and a regional blood bank, Miller-Keystone, to figure out how to get blood available to more EMS agencies in the region.
“This is for us to be able to make an impact,” Wilson said of the program. “To save lives, make a difference in the communities we serve. These are projects I’m excited to work on.”
The St. Luke’s EMS Physician Response Team is available to assist regional EMS agencies by bringing blood, advanced medications, and a physician to the patient’s side when they need it most.
Photo caption: Dr. Bryan Wilson standing before the specially equipped St. Luke’s EMS Physician Response Team vehicle.
About St. Luke’s
Founded in 1872, St. Luke’s University Health Network (SLUHN) is a fully integrated, regional, non-profit network of more than 21,000 employees providing services at 15 campuses and 350+ outpatient sites. With annual net revenue of $4 billion, the Network’s service area includes 11 counties in two states: Lehigh, Northampton, Berks, Bucks, Carbon, Montgomery, Monroe, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties in Pennsylvania and Warren and Hunterdon counties in New Jersey. St. Luke’s hospitals operate the largest network of trauma centers in Pennsylvania, with the Bethlehem Campus being home to St. Luke’s Children’s Hospital.
Dedicated to advancing medical education, St. Luke’s is the preeminent teaching hospital in central-eastern Pennsylvania. In partnership with Temple University, the Network established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only four-year medical school campus. It also operates the nation’s oldest School of Nursing, established in 1884, and 52 fully accredited graduate medical educational programs with more than 500 residents and fellows. In 2022, St. Luke’s, a member of the Children’s Hospital Association, established the Lehigh Valley’s first and only free-standing facility dedicated entirely to kids.
SLUHN is the only Lehigh Valley-based health care system to earn Medicare’s five-star ratings (the highest) for quality, efficiency, and patient satisfaction. St. Luke’s is a Leapfrog Group and Healthgrades Top Hospital and a Newsweek World’s Best Hospital. The Network’s flagship University Hospital earned the 100 Top Major Teaching Hospital designation from Fortune/PINC AI 10 years in a row, including in 2021 when it was identified as THE #1 TEACHING HOSPITAL IN THE COUNTRY. In 2021, St. Luke’s was also identified as one of the 15 Top Health Systems nationally. Utilizing the Epic electronic medical record (EMR) system for both inpatient and outpatient services, the Network is a multi-year recipient of the Most Wired award recognizing the breadth of SLUHN’s information technology applications such as telehealth, online scheduling and online pricing information.
Information provided to TVL by:
Sam Kennedy
