DRUID Immediately Catches Impairment Issue
It was early in the roll-out of the DRUID fit-for-duty app that Johnson County EMS Acting Deputy Director Dustin Gamblin had members of one of his ambulance units take the 1-minute test. When the unit’s battalion chief noticed that one of the EMS worker’s scores was above the normal threshold, and a second test confirmed it, sensing something was not right, he called Gamblin. Together, they made the decision not to dispatch the individual to the impending 12-hour shift.
Gamblin said to his battalion chief, ‘“Go get that person off the ambulance. You take their spot, and I'll come down and meet with them.” Gamblin continues, “So, I drove over there and went through all the questions looking for other signs of impairment, and then ultimately administered both a glucose and a PBT [preliminary breath test]”. The result showed the individual was intoxicated. And ultimately the employee was discharged.” He added “To this point, we are nothing but satisfied with the product. It’s doing its job”.
The Johnson County Ambulance Service, located in Warrensburg, MO, has 65 employees that rotate from five different stations on a 24-hour service. Although their number one concern about fitness for duty is fatigue, they initially decided to try DRUID to screen for impairment from marijuana, which had just been legalized in Missouri. Their attorney recommended they look into cognitive testing and mentioned DRUID as an accurate way to detect and measure impairment. They chose DRUID based on the extensive proof of its scientific validity. The ambulance service had recently come off a tragic driving accident and they wanted to take extra precautions going forward.
“It {DRUID] is a fast, reliable, and affordable way to add an extra level of safety to our valued EMS team"
“The biggest thing,” said Gamblin “was the medical marijuana aspect. But beyond that, I want to know if anybody's impaired for whatever reason, whether its fatigue or marijuana or alcohol or drugs or whatever the case may be, that way we can get them off the road.” Gamblin’s supervisors have developed a protocol to follow-up an elevated DRUID test with a face-to-face talk. They now do an investigation “and kind of see what the situation is, whether there is a reason [for an elevated DRUID score]. Do they feel fatigued? Were they up all night? And then, if we need to, we get into the PBT, glucose checking, and things of that nature.”
Gamblin advises other EMS organizations to look into impairment testing. Using the DRUID Enterprise web-based management portal, they’ve been able to set up alerts and custom reports based on the different workers’ shifts and roles. “It’s a fast, reliable, and affordable way to add an extra level of safety to our valued EMS team and make sure they are ready to go. In the past, you know, if somebody showed up, let's say intoxicated, there's a good chance that we would have never known”.