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Daily Reminder (yeah it's early but I have shit to do...)
EMS provides HEALTHCARE. We give meds, provide treatment, do advanced airways/procedures, and a whole bunch of other shit in a space no bigger than a Bari-Bed with maybe two other sets of hands...
EMS provides HEALTHCARE. We give meds, provide treatment, do advanced airways/procedures, and a whole bunch of other shit in a space no bigger than a Bari-Bed with maybe two other sets of hands...
...our "Lab" is the glucometer our Supply Officer grabbed from the local CVS bc getting a hospital grade PoC Glucometer requires you to get a Lab Cert, but we can't get that bc Paramedics/EMS Companies can't get Lab Certs (YMMV as this is a complaint I've heard from some locals)
And we read 12-Leads through artifact bc an ambo is nothing more than a gigantic metal box precariously welded to a F-250 truck chassis on leaf springs from the lowest bidder...
And when we read those 12-Leads, we aren't just reading what the monitor spit out, but actually looking at ST-Elevation/Depression bc the readout can be really wrong...
Paramedics provide Healthcare. EMS is probably the most narrowly focused specialty bc we do a lot of stuff w/very little stuff.
If you aren't directly involved in EMS...so you aren't a Paramedic/EMT, EMS-MD, MedCommand Doc...then you have absolutely no clue what we do outside the hospital walls so stop talking and learn something...
To address the people who talk about turning away Ambos at hospitals...
Hospitals can go on Diversion & can keep Ambos from coming to their ER. This has been a thing for forever. This is not a new thing bc of COVID so please stop acting like this is *only* bc of COVID.
Once an Ambo *with a patient* drives onto hospital property, the patient now falls under EMTALA & *must* be evaluated before EMS goes to the next facility. That's why you hear about Ambos being at facilities for hours.
Once again, definitely not new. Ask any EMS crew about how long they had to wait for a bed & they will talk about a wait in hours vs minutes.
