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I've been an EMT basic for a little over a year now and I'm quite happy with my job. And im always trying to improve how I interact with patients and how I do my paperwork. The company I work with now does mostly interfacilty transports. We take a patient from the hospital back to wherever. The narratives for the calls are pretty stright forward. But I wanted to see if any of you guys might be able to look at what one of my general narratives looks like and maybe give me some advice on what might make it better. Here is a basic narrative for a call going from a hospital to a SNF. On scene PT found in medical be with rails in upright position, PT in hospital for shortness of breath and being discharged via bls because PT is on oxygen. PT assessed and vital signs found to be WNL (or not WNL) PT assessment found PT has Foley catheter and is on oxygen via NC@2 lpm. PT transferred to stretcher via Morrison soft stretcher and secured via 5x straps. PT loaded into unit and reassessed, VS trending WNL. Enroute to destination PT remained stable with no negative downtrending. At destination PT offloaded and transferred to facility medical bed via Morrison soft stretcher. On staff RN accepted patient care and signed for transportation. That is a normal PCR for me, it of course isn't always the same but you get the idea. Is there anything else I could do to make my reports any better? Any and all advice is welcome.

Just a question.... I recently read an article online that was written by a Parameic. The article was about pre-hospital care reports and the format that this particular medic uses. They made the comment that on your report, you need to be as brief but accurate as possible. I find it very hard to be brief on my care reports, because when I write my reports, I try to be as detail oriented as possible. I think that paints more of a picture of what is really going on, versus just putting the information that I think is important at the time. If during my exam of a trauma patient I only find injury to the left arm, I will note that injury, but I will also note that all other extremities are without injury. This leaves no question as to whether or not a thorough assessment of the patient was performed. This is just an example, of course, but you get the picture. To be brief, in my opinion, leaves too much to be determined by the reader. Any opinions?