Writing a Patient Report for the Obvious DOA

Posted on February 4, 2019 by Jeff Feiertag

Scenario: You arrive at the scene to find the patient obviously deceased and the family member present said that the patient had a heart attack in his sleep. In this scenario, you did not attempt to resuscitate the patient. Here are the fields you will need to change in Elite that differ from the typical patient report, but this TechTip does not address all of the other fields you should be filling in that are typical of any call in your talented report writing skill.

Menu	Tab	Field	Best Entry
Call Info	Disposition	Primary Role	Non-Transport - Other Reason
Call Info	Disposition	T&T Disposition	Dead at Scene Without Interventions (No Transport)
Call Info	Conditions	Cardiac Arrest	Yes, Prior to EMS Arrival
	Chief Complaint	Date/Time of Onset	(Use, if known)
Patient	Chief Complaint	Primary Symptom	Cardiac Arrest
Patient	Assessment	Primary Impression	Obvious Death
Patient	Assessment	Assessment	(Whatever led you to pronounce death)
Patient	Cardiac Arrest	Resuscitation Attempted by 911	No
Patient	Cardiac Arrest	End of EMS Event	Pronounced in Field
Provider Actions	Vitals	Vitals	(Need one set, including 0 for pulse and 0 for respiration rate)
Provider Actions	TOR/POD	Criteria for POD	Rigor Mortis

Checking Off Personnel in a Tech Training Subsite

Posted on January 15, 2019January 15, 2019 by Jeff Feiertag

Scenario: You are a career officer or LFRD training coordinator and need to check off some of your personnel in a tech training subsite for the training project of the month. (Note: Only some of the subsites offer this capability; some check-offs are based upon the individual completing a course on his/her own.) Examples include Alzheimer’s training and IRP-Spec Ops (technical rescue and water rescue).

Logging in

Go to the site, either by direct link (as provided in an FCGO or direct e-mail message from the Ops chief, for example) or via the tech training website chief section (lower-right corner of the chief main page – see the bullet list).

Click the Officers’ Check-Off navigation item instead of the Chiefs navigation item and you will be asked to log in. Please enter your tech training website login username and password. (Note: If you are asked again to enter the username and password — and you are positive you did not have a typo — then please contact Jeff Feiertag to have your security rights checked.)

Navigating to the Correct Check-Off Page

Click the link for which personnel you would like to check off for completion of training, career or volunteer. (Note: In the rare circumstance you are checking off any civilian administrative personnel, they will be found in the volunteer section, listed as MCFRS Admin.)
Select the name of the course for which you would like to provide credit to your personnel. If you are on the career check-off page, please also select the battalion and shift. (Personnel not located in Battalions 1-5 are assigned to Battalion 99.) if you are on the volunteer check-off page, select the LFRD.
Click the checkbox next to any name you would like to provide credit. Repeat as needed until all of the personnel in that battalion/shift or LFRD for which you want to provide credit have check marks.
Scroll to the bottom of the page.
Ensure the date is correct. (It should load the current date but you may change it to reflect the proper date in which your personnel earned credit, if needed.)
Click the Check Off Students button.
Repeat for any other battalion/shift combinations or LFRDs.
Remember to log off of the site when you have finished by clicking the Logout link, located toward the top-left of the page.

Writing a Patient Report for John Doe (or Not)

Posted on November 13, 2018November 13, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

Scenario: Your patient is unconscious and has no ID in his wallet. Aside from being the worst mime act you have seen today, you have no information on him. How to record his name in Elite?

Contrary to what some will tell you, you should not call him John Doe (or anything punny but close) when you need to input a first and last name. Doing so implies that this is his actual name and you took that specific person to the hospital, as far as the people who are analyzing the reports are concerned.*

Instead, remember that you have options (Refused for people who refuse and Unable to Complete when you just don’t have the name and he is incapable of providing it).

Click the No/Not button next to the First Name.

Click the appropriate choice thereafter.

Repeat for the Last Name field.

Then again, if you actually run the real John Doe to the hospital, you should record the name. You just may want to reiterate in the narrative that it’s his real name.

* – Per EMS-Ops: “When you have not values available to you and you enter a name of John Doe, you are documenting that you took someone to the hospital whose name was John Doe, not that you took someone to the hospital whose name you do not know.”

Recording Meds That Are Not in Elite

Posted on November 7, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

Scenario: Your patient has a bottle of medicine that you need to record but one that is not in Elite. There’s no Other option in the drop-down list. How should you record it?

Click in the Other Medical History input box and add the medicine(s) there.

Follow this up with e-mailing the name of the medicine(s) to Tim Burns (Tim.Burns@montgomerycountymd.gov) and he will have the medicines added to the Current Medications drop-down list. Please double-check your spelling.

Identifying a Patient with No Phone Number

Posted on October 30, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

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.

Reporting a Downgrade in Elite

Posted on September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

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.

Fixing the “Initializing the Dashboard Resource Cache Manager” Error

Posted on September 4, 2018September 4, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

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.

Press Ctrl-H on your keyboard. (This will bring up the browsing data/history.)
Find and click Clear Browsing Data link on the left side of the screen.

Make sure all of three items are checked (browsing history, cookies and cached images). They should be checked, by default.
Click the blue Clear Data button.
Ensure that you are in an area likely to get a good wireless connection.
Reboot the computer
Try logging in again.

Documenting Medication Taken Prior to Arrival

Posted on August 29, 2018August 29, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

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).

Identifying a Patient with No Social Security Number

Posted on August 29, 2018August 29, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

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.

Filtering Out Priority 9 Calls

Posted on August 28, 2018 by Jeff Feiertag

Want to filter out Priority 9 calls from the MDC screen? Try this:

Click the My Incident button in the top navigation.
Click Monitor in the left-hand navigation.
Click Filtered in the left-hand navigation and then the Filter button at the bottom of the screen.
Click the Status Monitor drop-down field arrow and select Monitor.
Click the box for Priority.
Click in the Operators field and select Less than.
Type in a Value of 9 (or check the box for 9, either is fine).
Click the Add button.
Click the Filter button.
Refresh the list whenever you need by clicking the Monitor button in the left-side navigation and then the Filtered button beneath it.

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