Leaving equipment at the hospital?

[Jake Almand]

My ground EMS employer is implementing a policy that will not allow crews to leave a patient in the ER with any of the following pieces of equipment in place:

Traction Splint

Vacuum Splint

Pediatric Immobilizer

KED

The policy is designed to prevent our reusable medical equipment from being lost/destroyed. There are only two exceptions covered in the policy, otherwise our crews are expected to retrieve the equipment before leaving the hospital. One exception would be if we are in overload and need to get back in service immediately. The only other exception is we can leave a traction splint on a patient going to surgery. Otherwise, we are required to retrieve our equipment from the Pt prior to leaving the ER.

Has anyone experienced such a policy?

How do most systems handle equipment that is left with a patient at the hospital?

Would your hospitals be open to removing equipment earlier in the course of care than what they currently do?

This was put out recently without going to our EMS advisory board and I am looking at bringing up at our next meeting. My opinion is that this policy is inappropriate and places undue risk on patients and EMS providers. I can foresee an issue arising between ER staff and our Paramedics when they tell them they have to remove our splint so we can leave? I have routinely transported multi trauma patients with vacuum splints in place that are not removed prior to them going to the OR and I don't want to be the first person to ask a trauma team to remove my splint so I can leave.

Here is the policy with all reference to my employer removed.

648.1 Purpose

To establish guidelines to follow regarding EMS equipment left at a hospital.

648.2 Procedures

A. The following equipment shall not be left at a hospital; if possible:

1. Pedi Immobilizer

2. XP1 (KED)

3. Vacuum Splints

4. Sager Traction Splint

B. In the event of ambulance overload contact the EMS Officer to advise of equipment at the hospital so that your unit can return to service as soon as possible.

Advise the hospital personnel that you need to get back in service and give them your unit contact information, along with EMS Officer's contract information.

THE SAGER TRACTION SPLINT IS THE ONLY ITEM THAT CAN BE LEFT AT THE HOSPITAL WHILE NOT IN AMBULANCE OVERLOAD. THE ONLY CONDITION THAT THIS CAN HAPPEN IS IF THE PATIENT IS GOING TO SURGERY WITH THE SPLINT.

C. Each time an EMS crew transports to a hospital they should check in the designated area at that ER for EMS equipment and return it to their station.

D. Anytime equipment is picked up from a hospital, the paramedic in charge needs to contact all EMS Officers, along with all personnel that are assigned to that station by email and advise what was picked up.

E. All equipment picked up should be cleaned prior to returning it to service.

F. If something has to be left at the hospital, send an e-mail to all paramedics and EMS Officers stating where the equipment was left, contact information with which the equipment was left with and an incident number.

G. The EMS Officer should make every opportunity to retrieve the equipment from the hospital within 24 hours.

[DwayneEMTP]

I've not heard of such a thing before, though my experience doesn't lend itself to being a good source for this...

Others will know much more. I'm only commenting to say "Welcome!" and say thanks for such an intelligent and professional first post!

I'm truly sorry that you had to wait to have it approved before posting, but we've been getting slammed with spam recently and it's our stop gap while Admin finds other solutions..

Good to have you Brother! I hope you find something interesting here and decide to stick around...

Dwayne

[medicgirl05]

That policy doesn't sound like it has patient care in mind. Our policy is that we leave any equipment necessary with the patient...the nursing staff puts it in the EMS area and we retrieve it on the next run. If we are flying a patient we use a RAC backboard and disposable air splints when necessary. If we have equipment at a hospital we don't usually go to a neighboring EMS service usually drops it off at our office on their way through town.

[island emt]

Sounds to me like there is a supervisor with WAAAY too much time on their hands writing stupid policies.

OR the company is to cheap to have more than one of these items available for each truck.

thats what happens when you have the bare minimum of equipment.

Unless there is a high theft rate of said equipment in your area , then the hospitals need to have a more secure equipment storage area.

[RuralKSEMS]

Because of the place that we live/ run (very rural) we often have to leave our equipment with the pt at the hospital. The hospitals that we routinely transport to, store this equipment in a designated area for us to retrieve later. Anything beyond basic illness/ injury is transported to another, larger hospital that is better equipped with the doctors/ ORs/ surgeons needed to deal with certain injuries and illnesses. All equipment is marked with our service name and number so that we can get them back from even the larger hospitals later.

[DFIB]

Welcome Jake! That is a great first post and a interesting question.

Working in rural USA we would leave necessary equipment at the ED and pick it up later.

Working in the third world we retrieve the equipment before leaving the hospital which usually requires us to wait for the patient to be moved through x-ray before immobilization equipment can be removed.

[Medicman14]

It's the 648.2(a) "... If possible" that is the sticker.

When it goes bad, then it obviously wasn't possible...

Be careful with this one.

Just my $. 02

Sent from my ASUS Transformer Pad TF300T using Tapatalk 2

[Bieber]

Not really an issue for us where I'm at. We regularly leave non-disposable equipment at the local hospitals and we very rarely transport to hospitals outside of our service area (we have two level one trauma centers here, so except for the occasional non-serious patient who can be handled by one of the more distant facilities (and who requests it) they pretty much all stay in town).

The hospitals even decon our boards and splints for us!

[island emt]

Your a lucky man Bieber: We rarely get the equipment out of the storage locker that has been cleaned or deconned. I've seen backboards coated with dried blood standing in the rack waiting to be retrieved by the services. They used to have a rubbermaid shed outside the ER doors that was so grossly disgusting as to make you wonder if you wanted to re-claim anything stuffed in there.. Certainly not without gloves and maybe a gown.

[Bernhard]

We usually dont leave equipment at the hospital. Patients are passed over directly and taken care of immedeately. This involves getting rid of splints and such, under control (pain control, other immobilisation).

It is possible to have the patient on the vacuum matress until in MRT, then we either wait or leave it there and get it back later. Thats rare. More often we pass a patient on the vacuum matress to HEMS and have to get it back from the trauma center somehow (often by an BLS/transport ambulance of our service that usually drives by there one day or another). Then we use a spare one.

I recall a major trauma center where we always had to leave our matresses with the patient and got another one - from a service that left theirs before. This lead to several interesting changes, sometimes new for old and otherwise.

At the moment we have only a written policy about not giving our bed sheets away to other hospitals than our local one (where they clean them anyway).