EMS Media Relations
By: Paul
Morneau, BSc., Advanced Care Paramedic
Ottawa,
Ontario, Canada
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Copyright © 1999, Pendragon Publishing Ltd. (Canadian
Emergency News) & Paul Morneau, BSc. All rights reserved. Except for use in
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Edited and published as:
Morneau, Paul M. (1999). EMS Media Relations.
Canadian Emergency News. 22 (4), 9-14.
Don't you love getting up in the morning, grabbing the
paper from the front porch and noticing that a large picture of yourself or one
of you colleagues has made the front page? Then you read the caption below the
picture "firefighters work to save man's life." As paramedics, we
have all felt the frustration of seeing media reports about incidents we were
involved in yet see no mention of our role. Often others such as fire officials
or police officers will even be quoted giving details about an accident such
as: "OPP Constable John Doe stated that three people were taken to
hospital with serious head injuries." On occasion we are lucky and we get
mentioned but are often referred to as "ambulance drivers." It is
easy to get frustrated at the police or fire departments and it is relatively
easy to call editors and angrily tell them that we are not "ambulance
drivers." This of course does little to actually solve the problem.
Paramedicine in Ontario has had a serious lack of organized community
relations. Specific to this article, we lack an effective media relations
program. Instead of getting upset at the fire departments, the police
departments and local editors we should be learning from them.
The province of Ontario has
begun the process of transferring the responsibility of land ambulance services
to the Upper Tier Municipalities. This presents our profession with an ideal
opportunity to work with local politicians and bureaucrats to mould a quality
ambulance service for our communities. Besides the most obvious tasks of
establishing the importance of advanced paramedic training and establishing
response time criteria with the associated appropriate staffing levels, we can
also use this time to actively lobby our local politicians to ensure that
community relations is a priority in the future of paramedicine. This article
is aimed at local politicians, paramedic associations, ambulance service
managers, and most importantly individual paramedics. All of us need to pursue
more effective community relations. One of the most obvious ways to ensure that
we have effective community relations is to establish a media relations
program.
Establishing a media relations program provides
paramedics with great opportunities to promote our profession and at the same
time protects the communities we serve. Many other professions have taken on
the responsibility of ensuring that they promote themselves. The media provides
a great avenue for us to achieve this task. (see figures #1 & #2)
Figure
#1 Emergency Services Week (Ottawa
Sun, May 17, 1998)
Figure
# 2 MADD & Paramedics (Nepean This Week, Dec 20, 1998)
We have a responsibility to
inform the public on what is happening in their community and that their tax
dollars are being spent wisely. It is in our own best interests to regularly
show the public how they are benefiting from our services. By providing the
media with accurate and timely information on incidents we are involved in we
will increase our visibility within the communities we serve. The media is
naturally very interested in the type of information we can offer them. They
will be very receptive to us initiating a relationship with them. We can also
then use this new relationship to promote public health and safety through the
use of Public Service Announcements which will be explained latter.
If the media know that they
have a reliable and official source within the local ambulance service then
they are likely to contact that source on a regular basis (as is the case with
the police departments and the fire departments). We can also ensure accuracy
in regards to our role in incidents by being proactive and issuing media releases
shortly after these events. For instance, if the media only have the fire
department as a source of information for a chemical spill at a local school
then it is very unlikely that the story will include our role. However, if we
issue a media release and indicate such things as "paramedics are standing
by at the scene of a chemical spill and have transported three people to
hospital" then this will much more likely make it into the media report.
Media relations also allows
us to be seen as professional community leaders and patient advocates. We can
do this by regularly releasing Public Service Announcements (PSA's). PSA's
involve sending information to the media about issues of public health and
safety. The following are examples of information we could be sending the
media:
·
precautions
to take in severe hot or cold weather (ie: "Paramedics are warning that
tomorrows expected heat wave and smog levels bring them the risk of severe
respiratory problems especially in the young, the elderly and those that exercise
outdoors. Paramedics recommend...") (see figure # 3)
Figure # 3 (Ottawa Citizen July 7, 1998)
·
warnings
of severe road conditions during icy conditions (ie: "local paramedics
have responded to a multitude of motor vehicle collisions along a stretch of
highway 401 between Brockville and highway 16 and are recommend that motorist
stay of this stretch of the highway.")
Figure
# 4 (Cornwall
Standard-Freeholder Feb. 1, 1999)
·
Seasonal
related releases such as boat safety tips, water safety tips, winter driving
tips, bicycle safety tips, and helmet safety tips to name a few. Many of these
PSA can be sent at key times when a community has had a few incidents which
might have been avoided had people taken the appropriate precautions or had
preventative/cautionary information available. (see figure # 5)
Figure # 5 (Ottawa Sun June 9, 1998)
·
During
disasters we can warn the public about various hazards (ie: "The prolonged
power outages caused by the ice storm has resulted in many people using gas
generators. Paramedics have already responded to severe calls for carbon
monoxide poisoning. We would like to remind the public that carbon monoxide is
a colourless and odorless gas that, if inhaled in high doses, can be fatal.
Please make sure that all generators are kept outdoors in a well ventilated
area...")
These PSA's will often lead
to more detailed interviews with the various media agencies in your community.
In order to do all of these things we need to establish media relations
programs.
Initially policies and procedures need to be drafted. It
is important to establish procedures for all paramedics to follow in cases of
media contact or involvement in newsworthy events. It is also important to
establish the utmost importance to maintaining patient confidentiality. Another
important factor in a successful media relations program is to identify a
primary contact within your organization for all media related situations.
"Primary
Contact Person"
It's imperative that paramedics, administrators and
associations recognize that all media contacts should ideally be forwarded to
one individual (Rose, 1996). This individual is often referred to as the Public
Information Officer (PIO), Public Education Officer, or Media Relations
Officer. For the purposes of this article I will refer to this person as the
PIO. Some larger organizations will require alternate contacts however one
primary contact should be the recognized official spokesman for the company,
department, or association. Although the PIO will usually be the person that
the media deals with this does not mean that board members, administrators or
paramedics can not talk to the media. This simply means that the paramedics and
administrators must first liase with the PIO whenever media contact may occur.
This is important because the PIO can ensure that a consistent message is being
given and that policies are followed. This lessens the risks of accidental
breaches of patient confidentiality and contradictory messages being sent from
different individuals within an organization (American Hospital Association,
1984). It's a good idea to have all paramedics refer the media directly to the
PIO and not to divulge any information unless authorized to do so by the PIO
(Rose, 1996). Usually the PIO will simply release the appropriate information
himself/herself.
"Patient
Confidentiality"
The difficulty in maintaining an effective media
relations program in the health care setting is the fact that as health care
professions we are required by law to ensure the confidentiality of the
patients with whom we come in contact. The Canadian Medical Association's Code
of Ethics states: "...respect the patient's right to confidentiality
except when this right conflicts with your responsibility to the law, or when
the maintenance of confidentiality would result in a significant risk of
substantial harm to others or to the patient if the patient is incompetent; in
such cases, take all responsible steps to inform the patient that
confidentiality will be breached." (Dodek & Dodek, 1997)
Establishing what exactly
qualifies as a breach of patient confidentiality is open for interpretation.
However, the single most obvious way we can protect patient confidentiality is
to never release patient names to the media (Quick, 1998). Different EMS
services have varying degrees of what they will and will not release. Some
simply give very vague details about the patients such as "three elderly
patients were stabilized by paramedics prior to being airlifted to the Ottawa
Hospital." Other services are quite specific and release such things as
"A thirty-four-year-old female was treated by paramedics for head injuries
and transported in serious condition to Calgary General Hospital." Note
that in both examples no names are released. Until we are able to better
establish media relations in Ontario it is probably more prudent to use vague
information when it comes to details about various patients. In a publication
from the Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) to it's members they recommend that
hospitals contact their legal departments for interpretations on the types of
information that a particular hospital will decide to release. The OHA suggests
that the hospitals can confirm with the media that they do in fact have a
particular patient(s) admitted and what their condition is using one of the
following four terms: good, fair, serious, or critical. (OHA, 1986) Using that
example it would be fair to suggest that ambulance services could similarly
release details of responding to a particular incident and confirming having
dealt with "X" number of patients of which "X" were in fair
condition, "X" in critical condition etc. The bottom line is that we
have to respect the media's role to keep the community informed about
newsworthy events and the media needs to respect our commitment to maintaining
patient confidentiality.
There are some specific instances in which providing
information to the media should be avoided, these include the following:
·
Incidents
involving sexual assault, domestic assault, child abuse or young offenders.
(Ontario Provincial Police, 1994)
·
Suspected
homicides or attempted homicides. The risk of interfering in a police
investigation outweighs the importance of us releasing information to the
media. Once the police have released information we can then confirm our
involvement but make no comments on anything which might comprise the police
department ability to successfully investigate a potential crime. (Ontario
Provincial Police, 1994)
·
Suicides
are usually not reported by the media.
·
Patients
involved in organ donation. "In Ontario the anonymity of both the donor
and the recipient, if desired, is guaranteed by the Human Tissues Gift
Act" (OHA, 1986)
"The media
release"
Now that we are relatively confident on what we can
release we need to make sure that it is done in the appropriate manner. Members
of the media are usually under tight deadlines. It's important to find out when
those deadlines are and to try and get information to the reporter before that
time. The two most common ways in which we can release information to the media
is by interview (often over the telephone) or by way of a media release.
When talking with a reporter it is important that you
have your facts straight. If you do not know the answer to a question simply
tell him/her that you will find out and get back to him or her. Make sure you
do in fact get back to that reporter with the information he/she requested.
Never say "no comment." This looks bad and implies that you are
trying to hide something. (Larochelle, 1998) Remember to use the opportunity to
try and get a message across to the public. The interview should not just be a
time that you convey information to the reporter but it should also be a time
in which you can promote pubic health and safety. For instance, if you were
commenting on a collision in which a cyclist, that wasn't wearing a helmet, was
injured you could say something like "Local paramedics would like to
remind the public of this importance of always wearing a helmet when riding a
bike."
The other common way in which we provide information to
the media is by way of a media release. The most common way media releases are
sent is by facsimile. Sending media releases by facsimile will produce an
actual piece of paper usually directly in the newsroom. Sending media releases
by e-mail is not recommended since people do not always check their e-mail
often enough. You should compile a list of all the various media sources in
your community and get phone numbers for the editors and for the newsroom
facsimile.
Before you send your media
release it's important to realize that the term "Media Release"
should be used. The term "Press Release" is specific to the newsprint
media and should not be used. A Media Release is sent when you want to release
information about an incident. If you want to simply provide the media with
timely public service announcements or other information that is pertinent to
the ambulance service then the term "Information Release" should be
used. It's important that you included the following specific information in a
media release (also see Sample #1):
·
should
be on official letterhead clearly identifying your service or association
·
should
include the date and time of the release
·
should
include the words "Media Release" or "Information Release"
prominently at the top
·
should
have a title that will catch the interest of the reporter/editor (ie:
Paramedics given heads up about Viagra) (see figure # 6)
Figure # 6 (Prescott Journal April 7, 1999)
·
should
indicate the city/town and province from which you are releasing the
information (ie: Nepean, Ontario-1999/07/13-Today paramedics responded to...)
·
should
include the name and phone number(s) of a contact person, usually the PIO but
might also be an individual that can specifically deal with the content of the
release. For instance a paramedic that is in charge of your services bike team
should be required to go through the PIO to have a media release sent out about
the bike team. However, the PIO can simply direct the media to contact this
specific paramedic as he/she is better able to inform the reporters about the
details of the bike team. The PIO will brief the paramedic on what can and
cannot be said prior to sending out the media release.
·
should
be double spaced with large margins
·
should
be well written with no spelling errors
·
The
first paragraph should be succinct and factual. Remember that reporters are
trained to answer "who, what, where, when, why and how" therefore you
should make sure that you have answered these questions. (American Hospital
Assoc., 1984)
·
Subsequent
paragraphs can expand on the first, offer other facts or statistics (reporters
love to have statistics)
·
Quotes
are a great addition to media releases. Make sure that the quotes are
attributed to specific people and give their title. (ie: "When we first
arrived on scene we were overwhelmed with the number of patients. We ran from
one patient to the next starting IV's and trying to stabalize them until
paramedics arrived" said paramedic John Doe.)
·
Try to
keep the media release to one page in length. If you must exceed this then
include the word "-MORE-" at the bottom of each page. On the last
page (or the first page in a one page media release) put "-30-" at
the bottom of the page. This indicates that no more pages will follow.
·
Comment
only on the aspects of the incident that deals with the ambulance service
involvement. For instance at a house fire only the fire department should be commenting
on the actual fire, only the police should be commenting on the possible arson
investigation, and only the ambulance service should be commenting on the
amount and status of any patients injured at the scene. In the case of a motor
vehicle collision you should never comment of specifics regarding how the
particular collision may have occurred. This could be construed as interfering
in a police investigation.
·
Always
use consistent and appropriate identifiers like the title "paramedic"
and the term "collision." We should be referring to ourselves as
"paramedics," not ambulance attendants, ambulance officers,
P1's, P2's, P3's or EMCA's. The ambulance act specifically identifies us as
either i) Primary Care Paramedics (PCP), ii) Advanced Care Paramedics (ACP),
and iii) Critical Care Paramedics (CCP). Using the generic term
"paramedic" is usually the most appropriate and least confusing. (see
figure #7) You can expand on different levels of training or contractual
classification when specifically required to do so. We can also refer to motor
vehicle accidents as motor vehicle collisions. The word collision better
explains what happens. The term accident implies that the incident was
unavoidable.
Figure # 7 (Brockville Recorder & Times Dec. 11, 1998)
Sample # 1: Media Release
(613) 780-2687
Media Release
Paramedics respond to a multitude of collisions along Hwy 401
Prescott,
Ontario-1999/01/27, 17:30-For the past two hours paramedics have responded to a multitude of
collisions & rollovers on an icy stretch of Hwy 401 between Prescott &
Cornwall. Road conditions suddenly worsened at approximately 15:30 resulting in
over 20 accidents including one which involved four tractor trailers. The four
tractor trailers have completely blocked the Eastbound lanes of Hwy 401 just
east of Shanly Rd. (Cardinal). The OPP have closed the eastbound lanes of Hwy
401 and are rerouting traffic onto Shanly Rd. and Hwy 2 (please contact the OPP
for more details on the closure). "So far there have only been minor
injuries with patients being transported to several local hospitals." Said
paramedic Paul Morneau. Paramedics are urging motorists to exercise caution
while driving in these poor driving conditions.
-30-
We are glad to provide you with information on
newsworthy events. Please help us by mentioning the role that Paramedics
played in this situation. Thank you.
Paul Morneau is
the Public Information Officer and official ambulance spokesman for:
Your
Ambulance Service
Media Relations line/Pager:
780-2687
Fax: (613) 925-2413 e-mail: you@isp.net
http://www.yourwebsite.com
The
time is now to promote our profession of paramedicine. Politicians,
owner/operators, managers, associations and individual paramedics need to
actively work towards incorporating media relations into the day-to-day
operations of every ambulance service. This will go a long way to promote our
profession and to establish ourselves in the community as being patient
advocates that are concerned about the citizens we serve.
References
Bourbonnais,
R.M. et al (1997) The nursing profession in the media: A public image to
cheerish. L'Infirmiere du Quebec. 4 (6), 4-7.
Brockville
Recorder & Times. Special training of paramedics saves man's life.
The Brockville Recorder & Times newspaper Dec. 11, 1998. Brockville,
Ontario.
Dodek, D.
& Dodek A. (1997) From Hippocrates to facsimile. Canadian Medical
Association Journal. 156 (6), 847-852.
Joseph
Brant Memorial Hospital (1999) Emergency Procedures Manual: Community/Media
Relations. Burlington: JBMH.
Kelly, D.
(1998) Shots fired...children down. Journal of Emergency Medical Services.
23 (8), 39-45.
Kirschling,
J. (1997) Media research project to identify challenges for nursing.
Reflections. 23 (2), 24.
Larochelle,
G. (1998) Media release tool kit. Ottawa: Ottawa-Carleton Regional
Polices Services.
Maceachern,
F. (1999) Snowsqualls ditch 401 traffic. The Cornwall
Standard-Freeholder newspaper. Feb. 1, 1999. Cornwall, Ontario.
McGinly,
W. (1990) Media interviews and public speaking reminders. USA: National
Association for Hospital Development. NADH Annual Conference.
Nepean This
Week (1998) Mothers against drunk driving. Nepean This Week newspaper
Dec. 20, 1998. Nepean, Ontario.
(OHA)
Ontario Hospital Association & Health Care Public Relations Association of
Canada (1986) Making news: A guide to media relations for health care
professionals. OHA.
Ontario
Provincial Police (1994) OPP Media Relations: OPP guidelines for release of
information to the media. Aylmer: OPP.
Ottawa
Citizen (1998) Hot weather tips. The Ottawa Citizen newspaper July 7,
1998, Ottawa, Ontario.
Ottawa Sun
(1998) Emergency Services Week. The Ottawa Sun newspaper May 17, 1998,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Ottawa Sun
(1998) Player survives slashing. The Ottawa Sun newspaper June 9, 1998,
Ottawa, Ontario.
Prescott
journal (1999) Paramedics given heads up about Viagra. The Prescott
Journal newspaper April 7, 1999, Prescott, Ontario.
Rose, K.
(1996) Media enquires & nurses. Intensive & Critical Care Nursing.
12 (6), 335-339.
Schiller,
T. (1984) Basic guide to hospital public relations: American society for
hospital relations of America. 2nd ed. American Hospital
Association.
Quick, G.
(1998) A paradigm for multidisciplinary disaster research: the Oklahoma City
experience. Journal of Emergency Medicine. 16 (4), 621-630.