Month: December 2022

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Really Didn’t Even Exist in 1972 for Most of America

tomkapostasy3 Comments

The TV show Emergency! premiered in 1972, highlighting the paramedic services provided in Los Angeles for exciting situations. In the “rest of the world” (ROW), you dialed the operator or called the police. They dispatched an ambulance, typically from a funeral home or a police car or a hospital. The ambulance was staffed by largely untrained personnel or volunteers. They focused on transportation, which they were legally allowed to do, not medical care which they were not allowed to do. These unlicensed individuals typically did have basic first aid training, but no medical equipment, procedures, drugs or right to administer any immediate medical care. Their only job was to rush you to the nearest hospital.

Some Emergency Medical Services (EMS) progress was made in the 1950’s, 1960’s and early 1970’s.

1916 powered ambulances and signal boxes to summon care widely used in WWI.

1950 Air ambulance services available in Los Angeles and the Korean War.

1957 Portable defibrillator available. Mouth to mouth CPR techniques used.

1959 Bell Huey helicopters used in Vietnam Conflict.

1966 Medicare coverage for ambulance services. Federal ambulance design standards.

1967 AMA outlines first ambulance training. EMT’s trained to serve Black neighborhoods in Pittsburgh.

1969 911 calls first made in Alabama. Mobile coronary care units in New York City. Nationally recognized curriculum for EMT-ambulance.

1970 Legal rights for paramedics in California. Emergency cardiac training in Portland. First paramedic training program. Mobile intensive care training in LA. Miami and Seattle start paramedic programs.

1971 National standardized EMT exam taken by 1,500 students.

1972 Emergency room physician training begun at University of Cincinnati. Emergency! TV program begins. Citizen CPR training in Seattle. LifeFlight helicopters start in Baltimore, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Denver. US Dept of HEW assumes control of EMS from DOT. US Dept of HEW provides funding for 5 EMS demonstration programs.

50 years ago, if you had a life-threatening emergency, you could call the operator, police, fire, hospital or local funeral home and get a ride to the nearest hospital. You could not expect to receive ANY immediate medical care.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramedics_in_the_United_States

https://time.com/6215072/first-paramedics-black-men-history/

https://www.hmpgloballearningnetwork.com/site/emsworld/article/219388/timeline-modern-american-ems

https://wvde.state.wv.us/abe/Public%20Service%20Personnel/HistoryofEMS.html

Historical Timeline
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-03-03/pittsburgh-the-birthplace-of-america-s-emt-services
History of EMS
https://www.emsmemorial.org/ems-history
The First Paramedics

Good News: More Leisure Time for Gaming

tomkapostasy2 Comments

https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/video-games-united-states/

In current dollars, we have a $90 billion gaming industry in the US today.

Economists generally adopt a utilitarian view of value and conclude that if individuals choose to consume more of a good or service it is because they more highly value that good or service versus other options that they could consume. Economists try not to “second guess” consumption choices as being better or worse for people, even though they may have personal preferences that are quite different. “Games”, like “alcoholic beverages” have been second guessed by society and restricted at various times and places, but economists conclude that free individuals’ consumption choices are very relevant.

In my 1960’s and 1970’s childhood and young adulthood, video games were just emerging. We were an analog generation, lured into spending our dimes and quarters on pinball games. The pinball world peaked in 1979, with 200,000 new game devices sold that year to be played in bars, community centers, restaurants, student unions, pool halls, VFW’s and Lions’ Clubs. At less than $1,000 per machine, the total wholesale market was about $200M. The new electronic video arcade games grew very rapidly from 1975 to 1980. Estimated total coin operated pinball/video games sales were estimated to have grown from $300M in 1978 to almost $1B in 1979, an amazing 3-fold increase in one year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_games#:~:text=According%20to%20trade%20publication%20Vending,to%20%242.8%20billion%20in%201980.

https://pastimepinball.com/a-brief-history-of-the-silver-ball#:~:text=Pinball%20in%20its%20modern%20form,and%20didn’t%20involve%20skill.

That $300M in 1978 was a tiny fraction of the current dollars $2.5T GDP that year. One out of every $8,250 of GDP (.012%) was devoted to pinball machines and elementary video games.

Pinball machines were clearly the predecessors of video games.

https://pastimepinball.com/a-brief-history-of-the-silver-ball#:~:text=Pinball%20in%20its%20modern%20form,and%20didn’t%20involve%20skill.

Brief History of Pinball
https://www.betson.com/history-of-pinball/

https://www.polygon.com/2014/4/4/5570814/how-pinball-and-boardwalk-amusements-gave-rise-to-video-games

Video games grew rapidly from 1978 to 1983 before encountering a crash in 1983 and then resuming their heroic climb in claiming the attention of youths, mostly males at first, but eventually everyone.

https://www.gamedesigning.org/gaming/history/

https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/history-of-video-games

https://www.si.edu/spotlight/the-father-of-the-video-game-the-ralph-baer-prototypes-and-electronic-games/video-game-history

https://electronics.howstuffworks.com/video-game2.htm

The most detailed history of the emergence of video gaming as the computer industry evolved.

Video Game History Timeline
The $90B consumed by the gaming industry in 2022 was a much larger fraction of the current dollar $20T US economy than in 1978. The population grew by 50% from 1978 to 2022. Real, inflation adjusted, GDP grew three times from 1978 to 2022. The $300M market in 1978 is worth almost $1.2B in 2022 dollars. Hence, the gaming market today consumes 75 times as much time and GDP today as it did in 1978 ($90B).

For economists, with neutral utilitarian values, this is an incredible increase in community well-being. Consumers now choose to consume 75 times as much gaming entertainment services as they did in 1978.

The global gaming entertainment market is more than twice as large as the US market, an estimated $214B.

https://techcrunch.com/2015/10/31/the-history-of-gaming-an-evolving-community/
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/gaming-pandemic-lockdowns-pwc-growth/

https://www.insiderintelligence.com/insights/us-gaming-industry-ecosystem/

About one-half of Americans are considered active gamers.

https://www.ey.com/en_us/tmt/what-s-possible-for-the-gaming-industry-in-the-next-dimension

Consumers game on various platforms.

https://www.bain.com/insights/level-up-the-future-of-video-games-is-bright/

The global market for gaming entertainment is expected to double in the next 5-7 years.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/gaming-pandemic-lockdowns-pwc-growth/

https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/market-size/video-games-united-states/

https://www.mordorintelligence.com/industry-reports/global-gaming-market

https://www.bain.com/insights/level-up-the-future-of-video-games-is-bright/

https://www.yahoo.com/now/gaming-market-size-worth-usd-113000927.html

Summary

Humans with extra time have always sought “amusements” through entertainment, sports, travel and personal services. The “games” category has grown rapidly in the last 50 years and appears ready to keep growing for the next quarter-century at least. This is fundamentally “good news” because people are consuming more of what they desire. It is especially “good news” because “games” are available at relatively low costs, so they are available to most of the population as an improvement to their lives.