I haven’t done anything of consequence in weeks. Seriously. It has been weeks since a memorable or noteworthy call.
I took the same guy to two different hospitals in the same day. Once at lunch, and once at dinner. He said the Catholics feed patients better than Baptists. “But they both pray for you” was my response.
I’ve read no fewer than 4 books in the past few weeks. Several of you sent great reading suggestions, and I am enjoying the books. I have a stack of about 10 more that I want to get through.
A few days ago, I was so bored, I fell asleep while cutting my fingernails and listening to a Car Talk podcast. When I woke up, I was listening to All Things Considered, and the sun had come up.
I wish I could get a partner named Picov Andropov.
Our clinical department keeps track of interventions that we enter into the computer. Things like oxygen, IV, cardiac monitor, drugs, intubation, CPR, all that stuff. Basically, anything we do to a patient gets entered into our computer system and is tracked for success rates, billing, and generally for the hell of it. Mostly I think it is to give us EMTs and medics busy work.
I haven’t started an IV in 14 shifts.
I haven’t given any medication in 4 shifts.
On Sunday, I listened to an entire NFL football game on the radio without the ambulance moving. 4 freaking hours.
I think I may take up knitting.
And that good sir is why I DID take up knitting.
When it’s like that, I read.
You can always hide and sleep.
I had 2 cars last week average an .82 UHU actual. They would trade with you in a WPW heartbeat.
However, the interventions you enter are recorded for a number of reasons I’m sure you’re aware of. For example, when you mess up and forget to start an IV on the acute abd and the regulatory agency wants your license on a platter, the Quality Manager can review not only your chart, but look back at your previous charts for patterns of behavior. Tracking success rates at procedures also helps to anticipate when training needs to be repeated. For example, we track completeness of documentation for calls the clinician has selected specialty care trauma as their destination reason. From that we pull 6 core skills we want performed on all patients meeting that criteria (GCS ausc BP IV etc). That creates a number score. We aggregate the score across the system and track it. When it began to dip we taught PHTLS and it went way up. As it settled again and began to dip we taught the refresher.
However, we’re trying to anticipate issues, not react to them. Nothing is worse than calling someone in and using their 86% intubation success rate as a reason to scold them. That’s a failure on the part of the system to train you properly, not your inability to perform the skill.
And in the vein of full disclosure, I once went an entire pay period on an ambulance without even a call.
And now I haven’t been on a call in almost a year.
Have you read King’s Dark Tower series?
-HM
I also recommend The Dark Tower Series. My favorite series. Loved it!
That sounds scary. I don’t like scary stuff.
I once ended up in the lap of my date at a scary movie. That’s how much I don’t like scary stuff.
Justin;
Thankfully my agency doesn’t use UHU too much on the 911 ambulances. At least they don’t tell us if they do or not, I’m sure it’s part of the statistics somewhere. We seem to be much too focused on response times, and that’s what I get hammered on the most. (Seriously, the one thing I can’t control is what they hammer me on…)
I have seen lots of raw data that is collected from our PCRs. It is truly fascinating stuff. I was surprised to learn what my most common intervention was, but that’s a story for another time.
Lately I have been reading Malcolm Gladwell. I have finished up The Tipping Point, and now I am in the middle of Blink. I will be reading Outliers next. His writing is fascinating. I’m not really much of one for fiction, unless it is Patricia Cornwell.