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Routinely Not Routine – Good EMS Makes the Difference
One of my EMS truths is that while there may be boring calls and calls that are less than exciting, there are no “routine” calls. There is no EMS patient that doesn’t deserve the absolute best that we have to give them. Every single patient we take into our care, be it a scheduled dialysis transport or a simple discharge from a hospital to a nursing home deserves to have professional, competent, and caring EMS providers taking care of them. They all deserve our best care, our best assessments, our best comfort, our best compassion, and most of all, our simple act of caring about them as a person and a patient. Never forget that, you may just save a life during one of your “routine” calls.
This gues post in the form of a case study comes to us from a paramedic who works in Tennesee. He was kind enough to write it up for our benefit and I think that it hammers the EMS truth above home quite nicely, what do you think?
Case Presentation: The Importance of Diligence
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Paula Miller on -
I agree. It is easy to become complacent in cases that appear routine, and fail to check things we should check. I have seen things missed in this manner.
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Permalink Reply by Joe Paczkowski on -
Of course the exception is if you make your best care your routine.
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Permalink Reply by Paula Miller on
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My point exactly. However, many ASSUME that because someone else calls it a transport and not an emergency, that the patient by definition does not have an acute problem and therefore we can send our brains on vacation and consider it a taxi ride. Particularly with dialysis transports, this cannot be assumed. Hemodialysis patients are at their least stable just after a treatment, if you think about it, considering all the fluid and electrolyte shifts that occur with this form of treatment. Another one is elderly cancer patients. For some reason, as soon as they hear the C word, some providers (including ALS) will presume it is a BLS transport and miss the signs of, say, sepsis in the neutropenic patient.
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