EMIHS has made a change to speed up the load time for eMEDS/Elite. (It will also clear out the dashboard. The down-side to that is that, when it runs at 0300 hours each day, it will also clear out the unit and crew. If you run any calls between 0300 and shift change, please re-input your information as needed.)

If your system seems to be running slowly throughout the day and you would like to run this process on your own:

• Log out of Elite.
• Find and double-click the BrowserClear shortcut on the Windows desktop.
  
• Note the window that appears and click the Clear Cache button.
  
• Click the Yes button if you would like to proceed. (If not, click the No button and close the Clear Cache box you saw before.) You will know the process is complete when the window disappears.
  

Are you downgrading a call from ALS to BLS? While there has been a procedure in place for your documentation, the EMIHS group has added a new page (called Worksheet in Elite) for you to fill out, as well. Here are the basics:

Find and click the (new) black and gray Worksheets button, now located a few buttons below the Times button on the right side of the screen (above the Power Tools). This will toggle the Power Tools with the (new) Worksheets buttons.

Find and click the green Downgrade button, located on the right side of the screen where the Power Tools were a moment ago.

Note that a new screen has appeared. There is a menu on the left side with six headings. Clicking any of the headings takes you down the page to that particular section.

Answer the questions.

Sign the bottom (both the ALS provider and BLS provider must sign).

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.

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.”

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.