medichopeful
Flight RN/Paramedic
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Hi all,
I don't think this exact situation has been brought up before, but if it has, let me know.
I'm a student at a medium-sized (<10000) university, where I volunteer as an EMT-B. I was promoted/elected last semester to the rank of "Training Officer," so I'm in a pretty good position to bring about changes in the actions and policies of the EMS unit.
There are a lot of things that I want/need to work on over break, but one of the major things is legality.
Here is the situation. As it stands now, there are a few options for patient release after EMS has made contact with them:
1) The patient signs a refusal and it's witnessed by another party
2) The patient is released to the care of a roommate or friend of the same sex, and is told to stay in their room (this is for alcohol intoxication)
3) The patient care is transferred to the FD, who provides emergency transports for us (we're unaffiliated) to the local hospital
4) We transport the patient (non life-threatening conditions) to the hospital ourselves
Options 1 and 4 are pretty cut-and-dry. In the case of 4, we make sure we get the signature of the nurse in the ER/ED.
Options 2 and 3 are a little bit trickier. With option 3, it has always (even before I started working there) been the case that we would just verbally transfer care to the FD, who would take the patient. This is something that I would like to fix, and would like to require a signature on (get a signature from the FD staff who shows up, just to show we transferred care. thoughts on this?
Option 2 is the one that's really concerning me. After we evaluate the patient, sometimes the decision is made that they will just be released to their roommate to keep an eye on them. This is usually the "found sort of drunk by security, but is basically just drunk, nothing else major." (Though it would be better if they were forced to go to the hospital, but unfortunately that's not an option). When this is the case, the campus police take custody of the patient and that's basically like our patient transfer. They then pass them off to their roommate.
I don't come from a legal background, so I'm asking for guidance. Does anybody have any input on the legality of this or how to fix it if it needs to be?
Thanks all,
Eric
I don't think this exact situation has been brought up before, but if it has, let me know.
I'm a student at a medium-sized (<10000) university, where I volunteer as an EMT-B. I was promoted/elected last semester to the rank of "Training Officer," so I'm in a pretty good position to bring about changes in the actions and policies of the EMS unit.
There are a lot of things that I want/need to work on over break, but one of the major things is legality.
Here is the situation. As it stands now, there are a few options for patient release after EMS has made contact with them:
1) The patient signs a refusal and it's witnessed by another party
2) The patient is released to the care of a roommate or friend of the same sex, and is told to stay in their room (this is for alcohol intoxication)
3) The patient care is transferred to the FD, who provides emergency transports for us (we're unaffiliated) to the local hospital
4) We transport the patient (non life-threatening conditions) to the hospital ourselves
Options 1 and 4 are pretty cut-and-dry. In the case of 4, we make sure we get the signature of the nurse in the ER/ED.
Options 2 and 3 are a little bit trickier. With option 3, it has always (even before I started working there) been the case that we would just verbally transfer care to the FD, who would take the patient. This is something that I would like to fix, and would like to require a signature on (get a signature from the FD staff who shows up, just to show we transferred care. thoughts on this?
Option 2 is the one that's really concerning me. After we evaluate the patient, sometimes the decision is made that they will just be released to their roommate to keep an eye on them. This is usually the "found sort of drunk by security, but is basically just drunk, nothing else major." (Though it would be better if they were forced to go to the hospital, but unfortunately that's not an option). When this is the case, the campus police take custody of the patient and that's basically like our patient transfer. They then pass them off to their roommate.
I don't come from a legal background, so I'm asking for guidance. Does anybody have any input on the legality of this or how to fix it if it needs to be?
Thanks all,
Eric