What Do You Ask?

[missfirefighteremt]

I'm currently doing a small study to help a very potential business start.

During your interactions with patients, what questions do you ask?

What kind of information do your run reports ask for you to write down?

Thanks, any help would greatly be appreciated.

-MissFirefighterEMT

[paramedicmike]

A few questions for you:

1) What kind of business?

2) What do you mean by "what questions do you ask"? As an EMT are you unaware of the wide variety of question that will vary based on the nature of the call?

3) What kind of run report information are you looking for? Are you looking for narrative information? Are you looking for state mandated data collection? Are you looking for information from a billing perspective?

I'm a little concerned that you need to ask these questions. One would think that as an EMT you'd have a pretty good handle on at least the basics. However, I'm going to take an optimistic approach and hope that your answers to the questions I provided will help shed some light on just what it is you're looking for.

[DFIB]

They teach all to ask the same questions in school. Was your school different?

[mobey]

SAMPLE

OPQRST

EMS: It's just that easy!

Excuse my smart-assness... Had me first field delivery and am in a goofy mood

[Bernhard]

Questions depend on call time, if called out at 03:30 a.m. the typical first questions would be:

Who am I?

Where am I?

What am I doing here?

Why can't someone else doing this here?

Why did they call not at day?

Where can I pee?

[missfirefighteremt]

Sorry I didn't ask clearly enough. When I say starting a small business, maybe you should take it in to consideration when I ask 'what do you ask'. Yes, I am an EMT. I know the basic's. But I wouldn't ask this question if I just wanted 'the basics'. The small business I'm looking into setting up for my community and surrounding area is a Medical ID card. Our elderly have problems remembering all their medications (I should say some can't.) But most of all, what if someone was in a bad accident? After having a car accident in my jurisdiction, we weren't able to identify a patient. The pt was unconscious throughout the entire ordeal and through med-flight. It wasn't til we got to the hospital that the pt was recognized. We could've had pt's information written up and ready to go once we arrived at the hospital. The pt's family members could've been contacted and met us there also.

So when I ask 'what do you ask', I'm not only asking about basics (we all should know that) but I guess what I'm really meaning to ask is, what would you like to see on a medical ID card that can identify more about a patient? Would religion (some religions don't allow blood to be taken or given, I.E- Jehovah's Witnesses), blood type, emergency contact name & number, organ donor, etc be helpful?

If you would like; please list what would be helpful to you when looking at a Medical ID card.

Thank you!

[DFIB]

This is not to bust your chops but as a Basic EMT arriving on the scene what information do you think would be important to have on an unconscious patient?

Let’s start there and see if we have anything to add.

[paramedicmike]

This is not to bust your chops but as a Basic EMT arriving on the scene what information do you think would be important to have on an unconscious patient?

Let’s start there and see if we have anything to add.

This is pretty much it. You should, at this point, have an idea of what information is important. If you don't then there are larger issues at play and we'll need to address those in a different manner.

You mentioned an example of a John Doe who wound up being air lifted out. What kind of information do you think would've been good to have for that individual? What would you have wanted to know?

[nypamedic43]

ummm...excuse me for being a little dense here but....dont ALL wallets have a little card in them for emergency contacts, medical conditions and meds?? and ooooh yeah...the hospitals all have that thing called a File of Life, that patients can fill out with thier birthdates, doctors, meds, medical conditions, allergies etc. Kind of a redundant thing to start a business for that, I'm assuming that you will want to get paid for this, when those resources are already available for free.

just sayin.....

[paramedicmike]

ummm...excuse me for being a little dense here but....dont ALL wallets have a little card in them for emergency contacts, medical conditions and meds??

No. I don't think every wallet comes with that. The last two wallets I've bought have not had one in it.

Therein lies the problem, too. If people always had a wallet on them at least there'd be an ID of some sort in it. But people don't always carry their wallets or their ID. That kinda' kills the emergency info card in the wallet. It won't work if they don't carry it.