The Compliance Divas Podcast
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The Compliance Divas Podcast
#222 Medical Emergencies: When Saving a Life, Simplicity Matters
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The Divas discuss the critical need to be ready for unexpected medical emergencies with Lee Majerus, Program Manager for VitalertKit at Young Innovations. Lee explains how a well designed color coded medical emergency kit can help dental teams handle a variety of urgent situations. Whether it’s responding to an allergic reaction or addressing a sudden cardiac event, having essential drugs on hand ensures you can deliver fast, effective care when every moment matters.
Medical Emergency Training: https://www.vitalertkit.com/medical-emergency-kit-webinars
Vitalert website: https://www.vitalertkit.com/medical-emergency-kit
Welcome. I'm Leslie Cannum. I'm Mary Gavoni.
SPEAKER_01I'm Linda Harvey. I'm Olivia Long. And together we are the Compliance Divas.
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Compliance Divas podcast. My name is Leslie Cannum, and I'll be your podcast moderator for today's podcast. We have a very special guest with us today, Lee Majuris, and he's going to tell us all about Vite Alert and medical emergencies, something that we hope never happens, but we must be prepared for. Well, today I'd like to bring this very special guest, Lee Majuris, who is an accomplished executive and entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience building and growing healthcare companies. He co-founded and successfully has grown several other healthcare companies, including Puregraph and Controlled Healthcare. But today he is the current program manager for Vitalert Kit at Young Innovation. And he leads a line of medical emergency kits that help dental professionals prepare for and manage critical medical events. Well, welcome to our program, Lee. And thank you so much for joining us. I have a few questions, but I'd really like to start out with the big question: what is a Vitalert kit?
SPEAKER_03Great. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. You know, Vitalert Kit is a specially designed medical emergency kit for the dental practice. You know, there's a lot of different things out there, but you know, the American Dental Association recommends seven key drugs being a dental practice at all times. And what we did is we took those drugs and we put them into a very innovative kit that we're super proud of. It's uh you know, it's been on the market since 2012. And over the years, you know, uh it has steadily grown. And today uh we're super excited that how rapidly it's grown and that it's in many, many practices now. So it's it's an easy-to-use medical emergency kit designed for the dental practice.
SPEAKER_00You know, it's so important to have your supplies, your emergency preparedness all set and ready to go because uh just like uh you're driving your car, you never know when you're gonna have a flat tire, and it's just terrible if you don't have a spare in your trunk. But there's a lot more to it. And I'm gonna ask Mary to uh take over from here. She has some questions to help refine what we mean by there's a lot more to just having a spear in the trunk.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Leslie, and thank you, Lee, for joining us today. Many people just take for granted that they're prepared for a medical emergency, and it most likely they worry about the patient emergency, but it could happen to a team member as well. So we need to be prepared on both fronts. But what I think sets you apart from some of the other kits that are available is built around the issue of refills. So, how does it differ? What can you tell us about the benefits you bring to practices?
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah. So, you know, there's a couple of different options on the market for a medical emergency kit and a couple of different ways to purchase them or to acquire the drugs. And I've been doing this a long time. I've been talking to customers, and I really find that the best solution is really to listen to what they're asking for. And we do it a little bit different than anybody else, and it came directly from customers that were requesting is there a better way to refill these kits? And so, you know, the words they use was the refill insanity. So some of these drugs, you know, re uh expire, you know, usually the first year nothing expires. Your next year, seven to nine of the drugs and the things in those kits could expire, meaning seven different deliveries, seven different times you have to order these products, seven different times you have to find your expired drug, dispose of your expired drug, and put your new drug in your kit. So, any any time during those seven to nine um occasions, there could be a mishap, there could be a mistake. And so our customers came to us and just said, is there any way we could just get everything at one time? And so, really, from our customers, they said, Can we get a refill program? Or once a year for a you know, a fair price, a discounted price, can we refill that whole kit in one shot? And so, as we talked to these customers and kind of designed it and we said, Yeah, why don't we just do that? Let's keep the things in the kit that don't expire, let's keep the kit, let's keep everything you need. But once a year, we're gonna send you a uh uh a recycle envelope so that you can properly dispose of all those drugs in your kit. Uh, you'll also receive a full replenishment of every drug that goes in that kit. So you no longer have seven to nine shipments per year, you have one shipment. So once a year, you get one shipment, it has all the drugs you need to restock your kit. So you take your drugs out of your kit, you recycle them with the enclosed envelope, and you restock your kit with a brand new uh ready-to-go in good expiration uh medical emergency drugs, and you're good to go. So it's one shipment a year, it's one time a year, it's not seven to nine. And so that has really taken off, and a lot of our customers have really, really appreciated that. Um, and so that's that's what really sets it us apart. We're not doing it one at a time. And the the really thing that's I think is also a big advantage is it's less expensive, right? It's less expensive for us to ship one time, it's less expensive for the customers to purchase one time, and then we we package it in such a way that the discount um is less than to buy them individually, to buy them all a car. So the customers save money and it's easier on the practice.
SPEAKER_01That's fabulous. And I love that you offer them the avenue to recycle those medicines so that they don't have to worry about it. And um, we've had a conversation before, and I think even at the ADS meeting, about how when those individual refills come in, it's easier to set them aside and oh, I'll get to that later, rather than when the whole refill kit comes. Now it gets my attention. Now I need to go and replenish everything all at one time. So that is such a key feature. Thanks, Lee.
SPEAKER_00Well, Lee, I think now we want to get a little bit better idea of how we educate ourselves on making sure that we're not a deer in the headlights when the situation occurs, because I think uh many times we we uh rushed on the fact that we have uh a kit, but then when it's time to move into action, our feet are stuck. Tell us a little bit, and uh actually Linda is gonna ask you a little bit more about how we can be better educated.
SPEAKER_02Well, thank you, Leslie. And Lee, I'm so thrilled that you're joining us as well because in my experience, I think this is an area that offices tend to just put to the side. And by that I mean they don't think they're gonna have a medical emergency, so it's not something that's typically on their mind, right? And I've seen offices where the refills would come in, like you mentioned, the multiple times a year, and they just put them in the kit with the expired ones, and they don't complete the task. And one of the things that I've learned over the years is that um in Florida we have to take a course called preventing medical errors, and there's a lot of well-known research on the fact with human engineering that if there's a lot of steps in a procedure, we're likely to make a mistake. We get, I'll say sloppy, if you will, or absent-minded, we skip a step, we get it mixed up, or we try to do our own convenience stuff. And you've already done it, you've made it convenient, so we don't have to re-reinvent the wheel. Send everything back and it's a one-time, once a year, and I just love that. But the be given the fact that many offices aren't as prepared as they should be, I understand you're offering some educational opportunities for offices. Can you tell us more about that, Lee?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. But to take it even one step further, uh, when we designed our new kit, uh, we designed it what with what we call color-coded confidence. So, you know, what do you do in an emergency? In one of our classes, I thought was interesting this that they said, write down 911. And one of the person people in the class said, Why do you want me to write down 911? And the speaker said, Because people forget. In the middle of a medical emergency, you don't know what what you know, what how you're gonna react, how how you're gonna be prepared. And so, you know, when you think something as simple as remembering to call 911, you have that written down. I think that's a good illustration that who knows, right? What could happen in this event? So, what we've done is a little bit different, right? We we have this color-coded confidence. So we built in a quick reference guide into our kit itself. So the drug is color-coded with a number, with uh you know, simple instructions on how to use the drug, when to use the drug, and you can see it at a glance. So that's part of the education that we want to provide with our kit. It's something that sets us apart. The other thing is we provide once a quarter a continuing education seminar. And and we invite everybody to this because the bottom line is ultimately we don't want you to have to use your kit, right? So if you're prepared and you follow the steps, you may not need to use the kit. So that's the first thing we want to talk about is let's make sure everything in that practice is working properly so that we can identify those situations before they come and we don't need to use the kit. But if you do need to use the kit, how do you? When do you use it? What's the proper way to use it? Do you practice using the kit? So what we want to do is once a quarter, we invite everybody. We had 1,400 people on ours a week ago that listened, you know, and and and we talked about how to prepare, how to practice, uh, how to have your office ready for this. Um and we do, like I said, we do it once a quarter. It's a continuing education, one credit hour, free of charge. Uh, we have rotating speakers. But uh, you know, ultimately in my line of work, when I sell medical products, um, I've sold a lot of things over my over my career, but this has probably been probably the easiest, most passionate thing that I've ever sold. Because I can tell you every dental office I talk to, they want this kit, they want to be educated, they want to be prepared, they want to be ready when a medical emergency happens. So for me, it's been an exciting, uh, fantastic opportunity to be able to provide this information to offices that really, really need it.
SPEAKER_02Well, Lee, that just reminds me of something that I've said all along is every time a patient walks in the door, we're holding a patient life in our hands. So being prepared with a vital alert hit is imperative because you don't have the thinking of how many times do I have to send something back? Did I send it back? Oh, there's items here we didn't send back, it gets mixed up. And an emergency, if they're not remembering 911, which seems very simple, you know they're not going to look at two different vials that are stuck into a kit. One is expired and one is not. So it's just so I just love the fact that you take all that guesswork out and that your education starts with color-coded confidence.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_02And I think one way the teams can leverage the webinars that you're doing is just for team meetings. You know, even though they may not be, at first, we we recognize that if a practice has a sedation permit, they have different standards under the dental board for different types of emergency drugs. But for a practice that's just doesn't provide sedation dentistry, this is ideal. This is perfect. And so helping them be prepared and having mock drills and taking these educational courses is really important. Thank you, Lee.
SPEAKER_01So, Lee, you touched on one really key design feature, the color coding. Are there any other design features in your kit that you think would be um of interest to our and importance to our listeners?
SPEAKER_03So, um, you know, our slogan is um, you know, simplicity. Uh, we want this kit to be as easy to use as possible. We know a medical emergency is not a simple event. We know it's a very stressful, complex event. So our goal is to take this kit and make it as easy as possible. So some of the things like uh each drug has an individual uh labeled uh slot in the kit where it's like I said, it's labeled, it's color-coded, it's new numbered. So it's really easy to find each and every drug that's in there. Um we've we've loaded the kit with the most advanced, easiest version of those drugs. When you think about, you know, uh auto injector, epinephrine auto injector, we use the Avicu. Um for people that haven't heard of that. It actually talks to you like an AED. So it's very simple, very easy to use, and it walks you through step by step verbally how to inject epinephrine. Um, and one of the design features of some of the other products out there is accidental needle sticks. And I hear this every day that they're in this emergency, they take the cap off, they hit it with their thumb, they go to put it in their thigh, and all of a sudden the epinephrine went into their finger, right? I think that's pretty common, but with that Avi Q, that doesn't happen. So I think that's one of the design features that makes it very easy to use. Uh, the other thing is uh we have taken uh a drug like naloxone, um, which is generic narcan, which is used as an opioid reversal, uh, and we have that as a nasal spray in the kit, which is very simple, very easy to use. And the other thing we've done that we think is pretty exciting is in case there ever is a need for a backup, in case you ever need to give an additional dose of epinephrine, um we have it in a vial form, but we also put what's in what's called an epirite syringe that's already pre-marked, pre-ready to go. Kind of again to take kind of that that that the panic out of it that I know that, hey, I pulled epinephrine up to this pre pre-labeled line and I'm ready to go. So, you know, our goal is to make this kit, you know, easy to use, easy to refill, uh, and make sure that you're absolutely prepared in case you ever need to use it in a medical emergency.
SPEAKER_01That's so, so, so important. And I want to go back to something that you mentioned earlier that you follow the recommendation from the ADA about the most common or the drugs that are kind of the minimal um things to have in the kit. And so I just want to make sure that I have this list right in my head when I'm presentation. So it's epinephrine, alpha, aspirin, which would be low dose of aspirin, uhhydramine, typically benadryl, um glucose, and then oxygen, which we obviously don't have in the kit. What and you mentioned that you have naloxone, which many states now require. Did I miss something?
SPEAKER_03So we do also have uh ammonia talette in the kit for syncope, and it's not it's not a requirement, but I know there are some practices and some people out there that want to have that in their kit. So we provide that as a convenience as well.
SPEAKER_01Great. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Well, I have a question regarding how one would order this butt alert kit. Uh give us some details on that way.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so that's another thing that I think really sets us apart. And this comes from my experience as you know, a sales rep in this industry for a long time. My goal was to make this as easy as possible for a customer to acquire it, right? And so, you know, a lot of places out there sell it direct. And when I was a sales rep out there, um I had to just refer my customers to buying it direct. So what we have done, which is different, is we run this kit through distribution. So we want you it to be easily accessible. So whoever you buy your dental, your everyday supplies from more than likely has this kit. So our key partners are going to be Patterson, Benco, Burkhart, um, SAFCO, uh, Dental City, uh, Midwest Dental. So we're we're on the NDC dental program. So this kit's available from just about every dental distributor in America. So it's really simple and easy for you guys to buy. So if whoever you enjoy buying your dental supplies from, whoever you trust in your practice, they're going to have the Vilert kit for you.
SPEAKER_00You know, this is just easy, easy, easy, easy all the way around from the starting of ordering a kit from wherever you get your dental supplies from, to being able to identify things, color code, not have multiple shipments. But today with our workforce shortage, we have sometimes we don't mean to, but there's sometimes a revolving door in dental practices as we try to bring in individuals that don't have formal dental assisting education and try to do on-the-job training with so many different things for some uh individuals that have to learn all at once on their feet. And and having some simplicity really makes it nice when a product can be end user friendly with confidence, having some education available and uh being able to identify, hey, I know I have a kid that is ready to go. I I can't tell you how many times it's actually happened twice in the last two weeks where I've been to a dental office and they tell me everything is up to date in their kit. I go in and and it was actually the venid drill that was expired. And like, well, okay, this was expired last February, and this was expired. So the liability of you know having uh products but then not having current products on hand certainly could be alarming and uh like or like one of the divas mentioned earlier, uh, bringing forward an expired product or or a pharmaceutical instead of the one that is current. So Vital Kit takes all of the uh worries out of the situation. And even though we have new team members joining us, all they have to do is bring the kit to the doctor, uh reach for the needed pharmaceutical, and hopefully a life can be saved. You had mentioned that there was something else that can help fortify our knowledge on vital or kits and emergencies in general. Can you tell us about your special offer?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I I think again, it's in the the same thought process of we want to make this simple, we want to make this successful. So um, you know, what one of the key resources that practices have asked us for, is there any type of a guidebook? Is there any type of a, you know, a document that I could use to kind of train my staff with, to educate myself with, to maybe reference in a case of an emergency? And so what we provide is the uh a medical emergency uh training guide. Um with uh if you listen to this podcast and you mention free book uh to your distributor, you should be able to uh you will be able to get a free medical emergency kit that walks you through step by step how to use each one of these drugs, when to use them. Uh, and it's a very, very useful tool. And so one, we want to right, we want to encourage you to buy a kit if this does, but if number two, uh if you are in the ever in a situation where it is a medical emergency, we hope this this book will help you, you know, uh address that situation quickly and positively.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. Well, I think that gives us a great start for how to be prepared for medical emergencies. And I believe that uh I've got uh more information to take to my clients and audiences on how to simplify things and how to avoid the uh accidents that are taken by missteps and by uh not being acquainted and familiar with your medical emergency kit. It's so great that there's some education that you offer in addition to a super easy, uh user-friendly type of emergency kit.
SPEAKER_02Let's have a follow-up question for Lee. Um Lee, you talked about your the webinars you have. By chance are they evergreen that we can send our offices back to listen to them?
SPEAKER_03You know, yes, they are they are recorded. So yeah, you we can definitely provide you a link to it. So if they do want that education, we can't give you the one credit CE because it will no longer be it'll no longer be a live event. But we have a lot of people that do that as part of their training, right? If you have new employees come or new people in the practice, uh we'll we can send you those links and you can go back and and re-watch those anytime you want.
SPEAKER_02I'd love that because we can put it in the show notes and we can celebrate it that way and share it that way, and then also with our private clients. So thank you very much, Lee. That would be fantastic.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'll forward that to you.
SPEAKER_00And with that, we'd like to wrap up this episode of the podcast on Bital Alert Kit. We bring clarity and simplicity to compliance by navigating regulatory compliance to keep you on course. Again, submit your questions to support at the compliancedevas.com and please scroll down to our show notes, take advantage of some of the resources that are available, including the educational part of the program where there's a recorded webinar from a live webinar, and uh be closely connected to Vitalert's website, be uh connected with what webinars they have coming up in the future, and find yourself prepared in the event of a medical emergency instead of a deer in the headlights. And with that, we'll sign off this podcast.