Contacting Hospital to find out patient status

[joeemt]

I had a trauma call recently and after taking off my gloves i noticed i had a cut on my finger. I don't remember at any time hitting my finger during the call to the point where I would have gotten cut and I'm pretty sure I had it previously but because there was blood involved on the call and I'm not 100% sure I'd like to get checked out. I'm getting blood drawn next week and then again in 6 months.

My question is does anyone know who I should contact at the hospital to find out the patients status(HIV,Hep,etc)?I'm not sure what department to contact or what information I would need to give them,because it's understandable they won't release that info to anyone. The patient ended up dying a few days after the call but I'm sure bloodwork was run on them while he was there.

Thanks.

 

[Asclepius]

Every agency is required to have an Infectious Disease coordinator (I think that is the titlle). You should contact that person from your agency and they will walk you through the process.

 

[SwissEMT]

and I'm not 100% sure I'd like to get checked out.

Okay, see that? That's what we call a bad decision. Contact the hospital Infection Control personnel. On top of that, your department needs to be advised of the incident.

 

[Asclepius]

There is a process by which this kind of stuff is done, but your best bet is to contact the person on your agency responsible for this. They have forms and stuff that need to be filled out. Otherwise, HIPPA will prohibit the hospital from discussing the matter with you. Besides, if you contact the hospital first, they're just going to contact your agency representative to get the process started.

 

[KEVD18]

contact your DICO(designated infection control officer). you will need to fill out an unprotected exposure form, have labs drawn and possibly be medicated prophylactically.

how long ago are we talking here? and why did you wait so long? not only is that monumentally stupid, it might be dangerous in regards to a compensation case.

example(worst case scenario, in no way do i wish this happened to you)
incident as described above. you wait a week or two, then decide to report it. it turns out you have hiv. your companies lawyers, whose only goal in life is to reduce the COMPANIES liability, go digging into your life and somehow find out you picked up three different people at bars and took them home for horizontal after hours activity. they use that as an argument that your sexual practices are somewhat lax and that you could have POSSIBLY contracted the virus elsewhere. regardless of the status of the patient you came into contact with, you could be screwed because you waited to report it. now the same situation could manifest itself if you reported it that day, but at least they couldnt bag you on waiting till after you knew you contracted it by other means???

just a scenario???

 

[joeemt]

Okay, see that? That's what we call a bad decision. Contact the hospital Infection Control personnel. On top of that, your department needs to be advised of the incident.

There should be a comma in there, I didn't mean I wasn't sure if I wanted to get checked out. I meant that BECAUSE i wasn't 100% sure, i did want to get checked out. Poor sentence on my part.

 

[jordanfstop]

C'mon people, don't you remember anything from EMT-B? It's the Ryan White act!

 

[Asclepius]

C'mon people, don't you remember anything from EMT-B? It's the Ryan White act!

What about it? There is still a process by which you must follow. You can't simply walk into the hospital and ask about a patients contagious disease history without a reason or following the process.