PULSE Magazine | October 2018 Issue

By Walt Settlemyre, Clinical Specialist

What I Learned From Jail

Clinical Specialist Walt Settlemyre Visits with Central Booking and the Travis County Correctional Complex

The tones go off, the address is 510 West 10th for an attended patient. Not long ago had I gotten that call I would have had a somewhat different reaction. But recently I had the opportunity to visit Central Booking with Chief Hofmeister in an effort to better understand not only how the Jail works but what their capabilities are and how their proto- cols govern their practice at both Central Booking and at the Travis County Correctional Complex in Del Valle. Our goal in this visit was to bridge the gap between our providers and the jail nursing staff as well as create improved communication between our two distinctly different practices of medicine. Something we've lacked for a very long time. It was eye opening and very informative to say the least, and in this article I hope to dispel some of the misconceptions that ATCEMS as a system has when running calls at both locations, and give our providers a greater understanding of how the jail operates.

While we only had the opportunity to visit Central Booking, we spoke with new Director of Inmate Medical Services for TCSO, Mary Gallo, and the outgoing Director, Shelly Redman who is moving in to a new position as Nursing Case Manager for the Travis County Jail System. While speaking with them as a medic in our system I was able to get a much better understanding not only of why some inmates become patients, but also what each of these facil- ities can offer in regard to medical treatments, observation, and transfer of the inmates. For as long as I have been a medic with ATCEMS, some eighteen years now, I have not fully under- stood what their capabilities are or what guidelines they must follow. I've always operated under the assumption that they were [loosely] able to function like the other RNs I typically come into contact with within the scope of our job.

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