EMS Patient Bill of Rights

[crotchitymedic1986]

uuummmmm, because its your job.

[scott33]

..and where the hell do people get the idea that we're supposed to carry them - literally- to the ambulance? This isn't 1950's Hollywood ambulance services..

Funny you should mention that. I was tearing my hair out at this:

http://www.emtlife.com/showthread.php?t=10646

[scott33]

uuummmmm, because its your job.

Maybe in your Day Grandad

[explenture]

You can say they should be appropriately transferred to ambulance.....the best way might be a stair chair, or a lbb. The cot might not fit into a space. Do you really want to be carried down flights of stairs on a stretcher? If it is for say abnormal lab values why must they ride on the stretcher, why can't they ride on the bench seat? For some folks it is a matter of pride to walk to the cot. Yes sometimes we must life heavy people on stretchers, we must maneuver cots into tight spaces to appropriately taken to the ambulance...

[crotchitymedic1986]

A patient should never ambulate to the ambulance. Once one of your patients falls into or out of the ambulance you will learn that costly lesson. Lets face it, we all know someone in EMS or Fire that has fallen out of the truck, and we are used to stepping in and out of them. Now I will put on my "spenac" mask: If the patient can walk to the ambulance, why are you transporting them ? Put them on the stretcher (if you need to use a LBB, stairchair, KED, or scoop to get them to the stretcher, so be it).

[crotchitymedic1986]

Adding some new ones:

10. The patient should not have to see or smell tobacco spit bottles/cups.

11. The ambulance should not smell like cigarettes or fast food.

12. The ambulance should be spotlessly cleaned.

13. The patient should not have to lay on the same sheet that several other patients have used (no, a sheet does not have 4 sides).

14. Patients have the right to the best response time, which means medics should know their territory like the fireman do.

15. The patient has the right to expect a properly equiped ambulance which at a minimum is ALS, with temperature controlled meds, IV pumps, biphasic monitors, 12 LEad, Capnography, thermometers, stair chairs, etc......

[Chief1C]

I'm not talking about wheeling them to the ambulance... I mean physically carrying the entire stretcher, with patient, to the ambulance. The only time I've ever seen the whole cot being carried, is on TV.

Sounds like your super picky patient needs to buy their own gawddamn ambulance...

[explenture]

How about this....Patient has a right to evidence based treatment that is least invasive...

[crotchitymedic1986]

you may use the wheels and roll them, just dont walk them

[Michael]

Psychologically: On the one hand, the more a pt can do for herself/himself, the higher his or her morale might be, esp for peds and geris; it signifies that one is not helpless and will bounce back to normal life soon, as there's less psychic "distance" to bounce back from. So that supports the pt's walking if s/he safely can. On the other hand, having to go through the ritual of being-carried raises the bar for what constitutes an emergency. It's like having special "Sunday clothes"; one regards Sunday with more respect if it's really different in symbolic as well as practical ways. Dashing in and out of the ambulance on one's own power makes the trip more casual, so you might minimize your awareness of the trouble other people are taking on your behalf. So maybe it best depends on which direction the pt needs to go in - the greater formality for the cavalier abuser of services, the more independence for the person who needs independence reinforced. Though I recently had an epistaxic elderly lady dive for the cot as if for an old friend, clearly looking forward to the adventure of a night away from home, poor thing. Maybe walking would have taken some of the seductive thrill out of the trip. But Safe-T first, of course.