Talking With QA/QI

August, 21st, 2024

• Documentation is important not only to QA/QI but to the patient’s treatment in general. These reports are often referenced in the ICU days or weeks after you treated the patient. Please take the time to make sure you are writing a good report!

• An important data point used for STEMIs is the Arrival time to first EKG. The goal is to obtain an EKG and transmit it to the receiving facility in 10 minutes or less from arrived on scene time.

• When treating a chest pain patient Aspirin is often administered prior to our arrival via EMD protocols. When this occurs remember to document Aspirin in the medications section of your EPCR report with the box checked for “administer prior to EMS arrival.”

• EPCR reports are for medical information, if you have an issue with a SNF staff member or doctors’ office physician please send an email to your EMSDO with your concerns instead of documenting it in the narrative. This keeps the EPCR report medical in nature while still making sure your concerns get heard.

• When filling out an EPCR report for a code the wording in the “cardiac arrest” section can throw people off. For questions like “who first applied the AED?” or “who first started CPR?”  as long as it was MCFRS personnel who applied the AED or started CPR the answer is always “Responding EMS personal”. Even if you show up on PE718 it should still be documented as “Responding EMS personal”. The “non transporting fire/EMS” button is for agencies like the ones on the eastern shore where fire and EMS are separate. 

• Levophed is ALWAYS administered through the pump