Published in AEMT, EMT. Tags: Communication, Radios.
The Radio Wave The basic building block of radio communications is a radio wave. Like waves on a pond, a radio wave is a series of repeating peaks and valleys. The entire pattern of a wave, before it repeats itself, is called a cycle. The wavelength is the distance a wave takes to complete one […]
Published in AEMT, EMR, EMT. Tags: Communication.
Communications is big part of the EMS system. In fact, the 911 system that most people take for granted was literally designed to meet the needs of the EMS community. As an EMS provider, you will most likely to communicate with dispatch, other EMS units, the Fire Department, the hospital, and medical control. Methods of […]
Published in AEMT, EMR, EMT. Tags: confidentiality, documentation, HIPAA, medical legal.
It has always been expected of all clinicians to maintain confidentiality with the patient. This means if the patient confides in the EMS crew, they should be expected to only share the information with the continuum of care. Distribution of patient care reports should be relegated to the ambulance service (which has to keep up […]
Published in AEMT, EMT. Tags: documentation.
Special considerations of documentation A patient refusal is when a patient chooses to not allow EMS to transport them to the hospital. As with with anything else, there is a bit of a gray area in documentation of a refusal. There are several good reasons why a refusal is a little gray. Refusals are often […]
Published in AEMT, EMT. Tags: documentation.
Abbreviations Abbreviations are like 10 codes; they are great when everybody knows what you are trying to say. Otherwise, they are worthless. AAA abdominal aortic aneurysm ABC airway, breathing, circulation abd Abdominal AC antecubital fossa ACS Acute coronary syndrome AED automatic external defibrillator Afib atrial fibrillation AIDS acquired immune deficiency syndrome ALS advanced life support […]
Published in AEMT, EMT. Tags: documentation.
If you had to pick a methodology by which to document what you did on a given call, wouldn’t be best to actually document based on what you did? Documentation by patient management gets its’ strength from your knowledge of patient assessment. The better you know patient assessment, the better you can document the call. […]
Published in AEMT, EMT. Tags: documentation.
For some reason, EMS personnel struggle with the concept of objective information being different from subjective information. Most of us utilize the SOAP (or SOTC) documentation format when writing our narrative; therefore we have a place to specifically write objective information and subjective information. Objective: Information that you can perceive utilizing any of your 5 […]
Published in AEMT, EMT. Tags: documentation.
The example above is a paper PCR, in Georgia a thing of the past. In 2012, Georgia PCR’s were completely digital dragging the EMS community of Georgia into the computer age. From the written PCR above, you can see how poor handwriting could make this document extremely hard to read. Anatomy of a PCR Whether […]
Published in AEMT, EMT. Tags: documentation.
Every time an EMS unit is dispatched to a call, a Patient Care Report (PCR) must be generated (regardless if the ambulance made it to the scene or did not see a patient). Currently, all PCR’s are inputted into NEMSIS/GEMSIS compliant database, usually completely inputted by EMS personnel after each call with a laptop. The […]
Published in EMR. Tags: documentation.
Every time an EMS unit is dispatched to a call, a Patient Care Report (PCR) must be generated (regardless if the ambulance made it to the scene or did not see a patient). Currently, all PCR’s are inputted into NEMSIS/GEMSIS compliant database, usually completely inputted by EMS personnel after each call with a laptop. The […]