Yesterday, I attended a press conference organized by the Upstate Department of Emergency Medicine and Excellus. The press conference was to announce a grant that Excellus had provided to the department to buy and distribute lifesaving cardiac care monitoring equipment to twenty-three ambulance companies in our five county region. This is an important activity for a couple of reasons. First, it has potential to improve cardiac care in the region, get patients in need of a catheterization lab to that location quicker, and to save lives. Secondly, it is an important example of cooperation in a healthcare environment when we see constant competition and duplication of effort.
The grant that was delivered today will be used to improve care for a wide array of patients in a distributed geography. Matters not what the patient’s insurance status is, or what hospital they plan to seek care, the grant will be useful to them. The further diffusion of this technology into our five county area will improve care in Oswego, Syracuse, and Ithaca.
I’d like to take the opportunity to thank Excellus, and Dr. Arthur Vercillo in particular, for his willingness to help make this grant happen, Jay Scott and Dr. Daniel Olsson, in the Department of Emergency Medicine who have spearheaded the Central New York EMS effort, Amy Tetrault and others at the Heart and Vascular Center at Upstate have also been instrumental.
I’ve attached some photos from our press conference yesterday, as well as the full copy of the press release.
Let us use this as an example of how here in Central New York we can cooperate for the good of our patients.
Dr. Daniel Olsson, Dr. John McCabe, Dr. Marybeth McCall, Dr. Arthur Vercillo, Jay Scott