These are my Everyday EMS Tips reasons for building a list of email subscribers using a subscription service like Aweber:
1. Ability to send useful and timely injury prevention information.
2. Share important information with subscribers about illness and injury in the news.
3. Promote unique activities your agency is involved.
4. Invite subscribers to attend open houses, training programs, and other special events hosted or provided by your agency.
5. Build community with your subscribers. Help them understand your agency’s mission, the services it provides, and its important role in the community.

• How many visitors come to your EMS agency’s website or your personal EMS blog?
• Who are those people?
• Can you email them when you update your website with new content?

Certainly an up-to-date website is important, but having an ongoing relationship with your website visitors is even more important.
Building a list of website visitors is easy. Use AWeber to add a sign-up form to your website (just like we use on EverydayEMSTips.com). Subscribers use a double-opt-in process so you know that they want to hear from you. After entering their contact information – name and email – an email is sent asking the subscriber to confirm their subscription.

AWeber is a subscription based tool to turn one-time site visitors into engaged subscribers. AWeber features include:

* Double opt-in subscribing
* Automated follow-up messages
* Broadcast and blog broadcast messaging
* Tracking subscriber click

Want to know more? Visit AWeber.

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October has been National Cyber Security Awareness Month. EMS professionals need to be mindful of the security of the electronic patient care reports they utilize and the websites they access for professional and personal activities. Follow these Everyday EMS Tips for Cyber Security in the EMS workplace.

1. Never share your passwords for electronic patient care reporting, scheduling software, or inventory/billing processes with co-workers. Once it is out of your brain it could spread quickly. You may (likely will) be held responsible for any actions taken with your username and password by others.

2. Always log out of any password protected websites when you have finished. This includes social networking sites like Facebook.

3. Disable or always say no when a shared computer asks you if you would like it to save or remember your password.

4. Delete browsing history at the end of your shift along with any cookies and temporary files. Recommend that your IT department set browser settings on shared computers so this is done automatically whenever the internet browser is closed.

5. Learn about phishing scams and don’t forward, open, or respond to emails from sources that appear to be untrustworthy.

6. Password lock and protect your personal mobile phone. If your phone drops off your belt or falls out of your pocket on a call you never know who will pick it up. Prevent thieves from making calls with your phone or accessing your web browser data on the phone by password protecting your phone.

7. Always log off and password protect your own personal computer when you leave the station for a call. I mostly work out of hospital based stations. Many ambulance crews can access the day room when I am out of quarters on a call.

What are your Cyber Security tips for EMS Professionals? Do you use specific types of adblocking or anti-virus software? What are your thoughts about accessing public Wi-Fi networks?

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This is a guest post by Amber Riviere. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.
Why not take your service as an EMS organization a step further and make your website a valued community resource?

Local citizens and media view your organization as a respected and trusted service, and your website is the perfect place to communicate news, updates, and health and safety tips. Amber Riviere, BrownBugProject.com, shares four Everyday EMS Tips to keep in mind when developing a communication hub on your site.

Make it user-friendly.
It should be obvious to visitors where to go to find specific types of information (news, updates, emergency messages, articles, and tips). Make your navigation easy and consistent.

Make it easy for people to follow you.
Remember that not all of your visitors will be tech savvy, so make your subscription options easy and obvious. While it’s important to offer RSS-based subscription options, be sure to also include email-based subscriptions for those who prefer to receive updates that way.

Be timely and relevant.
Your site and its content should reflect current community concerns. Offer articles and information about the latest topics people are hearing about in the news, as well as those relevant to your local area.

Tell them about it.
Let your community know that your site is there to serve them. Tell them what they can expect from you in the way of content, and let them know how to find you online. Although your organization is likely well known in your area, it’s not likely that citizens and the media will immediately think of you as a source of helpful information.

With the right planning and implementation, your website can become an important information source for your community. Just remember to be consistent with your content, update your site regularly, and always keep your readers in mind.

Amber Riviere is a web designer with BrownBugProject.com. You can follow her work through her blog and through her newsletter, Inside Brown’s Brain. You can also keep up with Amber on Twitter, @brownbugproject.

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This is a guest post by Amber Riviere. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.

EMS managers, take note. If your website serves (or should serve) as a recruiting station for employees, here are four Everyday EMS Tips from Amber Riviere, BrownBugProject.com, to get your website in shape and help you get their attention.

It’s important to remember that new EMTs are generally tech savvy. Most often, you’re looking for people between the ages of 18 and 24, who depend on the Internet (along with text messaging) almost exclusively to stay updated . You need to make sure your website is keeping up with the times.

First, does you agency have a blog?

A blog, the most basic requirement of a website nowadays, serves two purposes. One, it’s a regular stream of timely and relevant information for your audience. Two, it’s the “Google juice” that helps your site get discovered by prospective recruits.

Second, does your blog have subscription options?

You have a blog in hopes of it acquiring followers, right? Then you need RSS and email subscription functionality to make that possible. Although some people will prefer to simply bookmark your site and return at their leisure, others will want to have your content “fed” to them automatically. Make sure your blog offers the ability for readers to sign up for automatic updates via RSS feed and via email (learn how EverydayEMSTips uses AWeber to sign-up email subscribers).

Third, take RSS a step further.

If you post new employment opportunities on a regular basis, then it might be helpful to set up a secondary blog strictly to communicate this information. If you do, consider setting up RSS-to-SMS (aka text message) functionality. Basically, this is how it would work. You post a new employment opportunity to the secondary blog, the RSS feed is updated, and people who have subscribed to receive SMS notifications will be automatically notified on their cell phones (via SMS/text).

Finally, are you tweeting?

Many of your candidates are hanging out on Twitter for a good portion of their days. They communicate through Twitter while online and while on the go (through their cell phones), so be sure to be where the action is. Post important updates (like new job opportunities, information about training, etc.) on Twitter and also post links to your blog updates.

If part of your website’s purpose is to help with recruiting new employees, make sure it’s accomplishing that goal. Provide regularly updated content and then give prospective recruits an easy way to stay in the loop.

Amber Riviere is a web designer with BrownBugProject.com. You can follow her work through her blog and through her newsletter, Inside Brown’s Brain. You can also keep up with Amber on Twitter, @brownbugproject.

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For a few hours today EverydayEMSTips.com was out of service. I apologize to any users that visited and found the dreaded, “sorry for any inconvenience this website is down for maintenance.” The mistake was simple. I attempted a website software upgrade beyond my scope of knowledge and when it did not work I was in a bind.

Based on today’s experience here are some Everyday EMS Tips to prevent a service outage:

1. Understand your capabilities. My knowledge of computer programming is limited. When the software was asking questions I did not understand I should have turned around instead of forging forward.

2. Always have a back-up. Fortunately I made a back-up of all of the important files that keep EverydayEMSTips.com running. The solution to today’s problem required re-installing some of the back-up files.

3. Build a support system before you need it. EverydayEMSTips.com is made strong by a team of supporters that understands our site and delivers outstanding customer service. During today’s service outage I was able to call on Jim Kukral at the BizWebCoach.com and Jesse Proudman at BlueBoxGrid.com for rapid assistance. I always appreciate the great customer service they have always provided me.

What are your Everyday EMS Tips for preventing a service outage when installing new computer software or hardware?

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