Offbeat Idea Leads Advanced EMS Designs to New Product, New Company and New Market

WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. --- It started with a small idea in the head of a retired firefighter and paramedic Scott Neusch. He thought he perceived a problem that could be a major one for injured patients, and he thought he might be able to create a solution. That’s how a free market works.

Neusch enlisted the University of Miami to help him gauge the problem in empirical terms. Then he set about inventing his solution. That, it turns out, was the easy part.

The problem was backboards — hard plastic shelves molded to accommodate patients with back injuries who need safe, secure transport to hospitals.

Backboards are one of the most common pieces of equipment aboard emergency vehicles. But they’re uncommonly dirty.

“We tested a random sampling of 55 backboards in several parts of the state,” Neusch explained. “What we found was a little scary. Despite careful cleaning after each use — hospital scrubbings — every one of the backboards we tested harbored infectious microbes such as MRSA that posed a danger to the next patient,” he said.

Injuries that require use of a backboard are usually serious.

And Neusch said, they often entail blood, vomit or other bodily fluids.

“If you’re an paramedic, that comes with the territory,” Neusch explained.

But the scratches, gouges and tape residue on typical backboards can harbor all sorts of infectious bacteria, despite careful cleaning. The next patient to use the equipment — and who may have open wounds — could easily pick up the bacterial infection.

Neusch and his colleagues, Joe McCluan , Mark Steinert, and Scott McIntyre contacted the Dept. of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate’s Tech-solutions Division with an idea.

“Tech-solutions was a great help, Neusch said. The result — Board Armor — is now a fully licensed, commercially available product that will undoubtedly save lives and protect against infections as it takes hold.

Board Armor is a disposable Tyvek sheath that covers the body board before use. After the patient is safely transported, the Board Armor is disposed of sanitarily.

Its use prevents body fluids from contaminating the backboard, prevents any contaminants on the backboard from infecting the patient, and reduces turnaround time so that EMTs and paramedics can get back on the road saving lives faster.

“It’s a simple solution. It won’t make us millionaires anytime soon, but it will help a lot of patients, and that’s what we set out to do,” said Neusch.

Neusch and his colleagues formed Advanced EMS Designs, which markets Board Armor and is developing additional solutions for first responders, from its corporate headquarters at the University of Central Florida Business Incubator in Winter Springs, Fla.

About the UCF Business Incubation Program:
Since its founding in 1999, the UCF Business Incubation Program has helped more than 200 emerging companies (including more than 100 current clients) create over $200 million in annual total economic output and more than 1,600 new jobs with an average salary of $59,000. With nine facilities across the Greater Orlando community, the Business Incubation Program is a collaboration in economic development between the University of Central Florida, Orange County, the City of Orlando, Seminole County, the City of Winter Springs, The City of Sanford, Lake County, the City of Leesburg, Osceola County, the City of Kissimmee, City of St. Cloud, Volusia County and the Florida High Tech Corridor Council. Please visit www.incubator.ucf.edu and UCFBIP on Facebook.