Scenario: Your patient has declined (however forcefully) to share his/her phone number with you and it’s a required field in Elite. What to do?
If you leave the field blank: You will lose five (5) points toward your completion total.
If you type all 9s (999-999-9999, consistent with the SSN approach): You will not lose any points toward your completion total but you will still get a validation error, which explains that is it preferable to get a valid phone number.
Scenario: You are an ALS provider who needs to report a downgrade in Elite. The BLS provider has transported the patient in his/her ambulance and you intend to try to return to Station 8 without being dispatched. What do you need to report?
Ensure you are writing the report with the Unit/Call Sign as the ALS unit on the call.
Switch to the Call Info menu and Disposition tab to change the Primary Role of the Unit at the End of Incident to Non-Transport-Other Reason and The Treatment & Transport Disposition field to Operational Support Provided – Patient Contact (if there was PT contact).
Leave the Patient Side Time blank. (Yes, it will be red, but it won’t trigger the additional validation rules this way.)
Remember, just as with the previous version of eMEDS, you still need to write a narrative to explain why you chose to downgrade the patient.
Are you trying to log onto Elite but getting an error of Initializing the Dashboard Resource Cache Manager? Are you frustrated and ready to inflict damage on the unsuspecting hardware?
Please don’t hurt the computer. This is a simple fix in Google Chrome and a quick one, at that.
Scenario: Your cardiac patient took aspirin prior to your arrival and you need to document this.
Change to the Provider Actions menu and Medication tab and click the Add button.
Fill in the necessary files. For the Crew Giving Medication field, use either Other Non-Healthcare Provider (for people unrelated to healthcare organizations) or Other Healthcare Provider (for doctors, nurses, hospital/urgent care personnel, etc).
Scenario: You have recorded 999-99-9999 for a patient’s social security number and Elite is flagging you with a red field.
What does this mean?
MCFRS now would like you to capture the patient’s medical record (MR) number whenever you transport and you are unable to obtain a valid social security number. The MR number is located on the patient’s wrist ID that hospital staff put on the patient.
Where to enter the MR number?
The CAD menu’s first screen shows the following (now required with the 999-99-9999 SSN) field:
Click the Add button.
Select Hospital Medical Record Number – Receiving and input the number found on the patient’s wristband.
Want to filter out Priority 9 calls from the MDC screen? Try this:
Need help with eMEDS Elite? Here is a handy troubleshooting flowchart:
This TechTip could make a small part of your documentation easier. Take a minute to let that sink in — the technology provided to you for your job could be making that job a little easier. With Elite, you may scan a driver’s license for your patient report to fill in several Patient Info tab fields automatically.
The fine print: This works successfully with most drivers’ licenses but not every state has been checked.
The process:
Note: Please remember to give the driver’s license back to your patient.
Scenario: What you thought was a patient with the worst hangnail of his life and a basic BLS call has quickly morphed into a higher-level ALS call. The paramedic arrives onscene and takes over the call. It is important to remember that the patient report should show the paramedic as the primary (and only primary) caregiver.
Why is this necessary? Among other reasons, only paramedics have access to the ALS-related medications and procedures in Elite. Also, if (s)he is listed as the primary caregiver, no one will need to change the provider name in the Crew Member field.
Meanwhile (unlike the original eMEDS), Elite now has a validation rule (#1363) that will flag the Crew Members field (Crew tab) as red if an ALS provider is listed with the crew but not as the primary patient caregiver.
Scenario: You have begun a patient report and you need to transfer it to a non-MCFRS unit for someone else to complete the report.
Begin your patient report and, when you are ready to transfer it, click the blue Transfers button, located at the top of the screen near the CAD and EKG buttons.
Note the pop-up menu that appears and select Upload Transfer.
Select the appropriate agency (e.g., Frederick County) from the drop-down list and then select which option you need from the resulting pop-up dialog box. Transfer and Remove will send the report to the server for the other unit and remove it from your dashboard, whereas Transfer and Keep will send it to the server but leave the report on your dashboard.
Note that you will now be prompted whether to Post and Transfer or just Transfer Only. Select the former if you would like to post the report along with the transfer to the server or the latter if you just want to transfer the report to another unit.
The other unit should click begin a blank incident and then click the Transfer button, followed by Download Transfer and will see the following dialog box:
The other user may click the download button, found to the right of the desired incident (appearing as a down arrow) and continue the report as needed.