IFT BLS EMT

A

AfxEMT

Forum Probie
Messages
17
Reaction score
4
Points
3
Hello everyone. I'm an emt-b & I work for a private ambulance, we primarily do IFT. This is my first ems job & I've been doing it for three months now. However I feel like doing BLS IFT gets no respect from other health care professionals, like one time we were about to take a pt to a snf so I was asking the nurse for a report & allergies & such & she told me "I don't understand why you need all of this, you're just transport."
Is it just me or this is BLS IFT life?? Private taxi. Barely get to do anything besides vitals & continue O2 therapy.
 
AfxEMT said:
Hello everyone. I'm an emt-b & I work for a private ambulance, we primarily do IFT. This is my first ems job & I've been doing it for three months now. However I feel like doing BLS IFT gets no respect from other health care professionals, like one time we were about to take a pt to a snf so I was asking the nurse for a report & allergies & such & she told me "I don't understand why you need all of this, you're just transport."
Is it just me or this is BLS IFT life?? Private taxi. Barely get to do anything besides vitals & continue O2 therapy.
Click to expand...

BLS IFT is, for the most part, just a private taxi. However, it's an EXCELLENT learning experience for you. You'll get practice with patient assessment and customer service. In addition, you'll be able to learn medications, diseases, etc. Show those on both ends of the transfer (as well as the patient) that you're learning these things, and are competent, and hopefully the attitude changes. Keep in mind, though, that there will always be people who are just jerks.

Look at going to a service that provides emergency response or critical care transport after you get some experience. Also look at going to medic school if you're interested in continuing in this field. Good luck!
 
That is the attitude of SNF, at least that has been my experience. Both on BLS and ALS IFT also with 911 calls. When I was working part time on an IFT ALS Truck we would do BLS Transfers because our BLS Truck was busy. And while my EMT was getting report, sometimes I would over hear something that would trigger me to ask a question and I would get a similar attitude from the staff. We were transporting a patient because he was altered after a ground level fall and the nurse said that he had dementia. So I asked what is his normal baseline mentation that is causing you to say he is altered now, and she could not understand why I was asking the question. Found out later after speaking to other staff members that he actually wasn't altered at all.

I will say learned a ton while working IFT.

You just have to take everything with a grain of salt, EMS is still new to the medical field and we do not have a lot of respect yet from other professionals. (But this is another argument for another thread, and I know we have many threads already started on this topic)
 
To be honest, it depends on how you handle yourself. I work on a one-on-one BLS/ALS rig, and when it's my call I'm the one in charge. I'll ask the nurses questions, and if they don't want to answer I keep asking until they do answer. I'll never fall in line with the private taxi mentality, because we're still medical professionals providing medical care. Some won't respect you, but it's up to you to push through that, remain professional, and get all the information you need.
 
This feeling will never end. I work for a reputable company that exclusively (911/IFT) 90% of our county. Even when we go on a transfer we occasionally get the nurse who doesn't understand. They ask why I have questions and why I need a report. Their excuses range from "He's already been accepted over there." To "I called report to the nurse already," to "you're just BLS"

My response is usually "what if we don't make it to XYZ."

Most often these responses are from inexperienced and incompetent nurses. The good ones understand.
 
I worked private for 3 years. Most of the calls were IFT. Misunderstanding about our scope is rampant.
The worst was when a nurse became angry with me for opening and going through the patients packet (facesheet, DNR, allergies, meds, past medical history). She claimed I couldn't look at it due to HIPAA regulations. I don't think she understood what continuity of care means.
Have had a few nurses accompany us when we transported patients to appointments. If they weren't already aware, they were surprised by what our scope covers.

My recommendation is to remain polite and get the information you need to do your job, even if you have to ask another nurse. You can always vent about the experience later.
 
Ift is a great way to get some exposure to a few things. You learn a lot of medications that fieldwork doesnt teach. You get to learn a lot about definitive care. You learn about end of life care. But most of all, you will learn how sad it is when the body has outlasted the mind (dementia) and you will get to do a lot more suctioning in my experience. You learn a lot about how to talk to your patients and very importantly, you learn the inner layouts of the hospitals (of which there are 17 in the Seattle area) and you also learn where all the snf facilities are, which does speed your response times when you're 911.

I did ift for two years and I am at the point where ive seen it all (airlifts taught me a lot too) and am happy with 911 response now. But I feel like I am a much better EMT than many of my peers who have only ever done 911 who don't know what a lot of cardiac, blood thinning, psych, or narcotic medications are. Out here, the majority of our ift transports really should be wheelchair or stretcher van, which pisses me off, as it kust means AMR is deliberately trying to milk the patients, and cabulance services are so anemic that hospitals would rather make up some phony baloney physician certification statement (pcs form) and force us to polish a turd, so to speak, in trying to justify why this patient needs an ambulance ride, without lying, in our narratives.

Bls ift transport is one of the biggest scams in healthcare right now. Almost nobody needs it.
 
AfxEMT said:
Hello everyone. I'm an emt-b & I work for a private ambulance, we primarily do IFT. This is my first ems job & I've been doing it for three months now. However I feel like doing BLS IFT gets no respect from other health care professionals, like one time we were about to take a pt to a snf so I was asking the nurse for a report & allergies & such & she told me "I don't understand why you need all of this, you're just transport."
Is it just me or this is BLS IFT life?? Private taxi. Barely get to do anything besides vitals & continue O2 therapy.
Click to expand...
I know the feels, I work for one here in Shreveport, LA. We do IFT but we also do some "911" to nursing homes and such. I get that same speal about "your just Transport". I feel like EMT school was a waste working here.
 
CSchlesinger908 said:
I know the feels, I work for one here in Shreveport, LA. We do IFT but we also do some "911" to nursing homes and such. I get that same speal about "your just Transport". I feel like EMT school was a waste working here.
Click to expand...
Honestly, most IFT patients do not need what little education EMT-Bs DO get. The truly sick IFT patient's usually go ALS or CCT or get flown from a-to-b
 
Anything an EMT does on an IFT truck can be taught to anyone walking the street in ten minutes. Use IFT as a stepping stone, and don't be the guy just going through the motions (though easy to get sucked into, as I did.) Look at your patients history and then study up on that disease process and the drugs used to help it.
 
Chewy20 said:
Anything an EMT does on an IFT truck can be taught to anyone walking the street in ten minutes. Use IFT as a stepping stone, and don't be the guy just going through the motions (though easy to get sucked into, as I did.) Look at your patients history and then study up on that disease process and the drugs used to help it.
Click to expand...

That's definitely what I'm doing. Whenever I go to these clinics I always grab one of every pamphlet I see. I look up meds I don't know. It's definitely a good place to get my feet wet, of course.
 
NPO said:
This feeling will never end. I work for a reputable company that exclusively (911/IFT) 90% of our county. Even when we go on a transfer we occasionally get the nurse who doesn't understand. They ask why I have questions and why I need a report. Their excuses range from "He's already been accepted over there." To "I called report to the nurse already," to "you're just BLS"

My response is usually "what if we don't make it to XYZ."

Most often these responses are from inexperienced and incompetent nurses. The good ones understand.
Click to expand...
If they give you excuses, you can provide a better reply by stating simply, "Would you accept care of a patient without getting report from anyone?" That puts things into a perspective that nurses understand, even if they don't understand what you do or what your scope is.
 
BeansCO said:
I worked private for 3 years. Most of the calls were IFT. Misunderstanding about our scope is rampant.
The worst was when a nurse became angry with me for opening and going through the patients packet (facesheet, DNR, allergies, meds, past medical history). She claimed I couldn't look at it due to HIPAA regulations. I don't think she understood what continuity of care means.
Have had a few nurses accompany us when we transported patients to appointments. If they weren't already aware, they were surprised by what our scope covers.

My recommendation is to remain polite and get the information you need to do your job, even if you have to ask another nurse. You can always vent about the experience later.
Click to expand...
One of the reasons why there's a "misunderstanding" about the scope of EMS practice is that in nursing school, nor after it, nurses aren't educated at all about the scope of practice that EMS personnel have. They aren't taught the differences between EMT, AEMT, and Paramedic scopes of practice.

As to the nurse getting angry about you going through a packet, sometimes it's better to just wait until you're outside the facility and out of the nurse's view before you resume mining for info. Right then isn't the time to give an ignorant nurse an education about HIPAA because that'll just evolve into a shouting match and you'll lose because the nurse will report to their supervisor that you were rude and that can cost a transport contract.
 
NPO said:
And that's exactly what I do.
Click to expand...
To be fair, you did say "My response is usually "what if we don't make it to XYZ" and not what I suggested. Those are two very different statements, that, to us, mean essentially the same thing: "I need to get report on that patient." To the nurse, the first statement you gave doesn't change a line of thinking because if the transport destination is changed they figure they can just call report to the new destination. The other response puts things into the perspective of the nurse's own practice. The nurse may be ignorant about your scope or what you do, but won't be ignorant about their own scope or practices.

You might not ever go into nursing, but if you know enough about their normal processes about accepting care of a patient, you can go a long way into getting your point across without letting things devolve.
 
IFT is where ambulance companies make their money. Most PTs pay via insurance vs. 911 where only 60 percent end up paying.
 
Ive had nurses give me crap about looking through PT treatment records while waiting on some doctor to check them out one last time. I normally just ignore them for the most part. Ive gone to charge nurses to get a PT history and status cause some nurse thought she didnt have to tell me anything. Normally going to the charge nurse changes the nurses tone pretty fast. Ive refused to transport PTs until a nurse has given me the low down on a PT. That normally ends up being funny when they complain to my supervisor and I explain it to them. If you do your job right your supervisor should have no problem backing you up.
 
AfxEMT said:
"I don't understand why you need all of this, you're just transport."
Is it just me or this is BLS IFT life?? Private taxi. Barely get to do anything besides vitals & continue O2 therapy.
Click to expand...

I have yet to have any nurses give me trouble, they're usually good about making sure I have all I need before I leave. The latter half kind of rings true for my limited time though, O2 is a rare occurrence for me. :p It has been helpful in learning good communication skills with patients and developing my own system of organization.
 
Chewy20 said:
Anything an EMT does on an IFT truck can be taught to anyone walking the street in ten minutes. Use IFT as a stepping stone, and don't be the guy just going through the motions (though easy to get sucked into, as I did.) Look at your patients history and then study up on that disease process and the drugs used to help it.
Click to expand...


I agree that even on an IFT unit you should still do your own assessment, take your own vitals. I've caught things that were never mentioned in the "report" from the sending nurse that completely changed the treatment plan for a patient. IFT is what you make of it, as many have said, use it to your advantage. Hone your patient assessment and vital skills and build good rapport with your patients and the hospital staff (if possible).

Depending on your system you might be able to run CCT which can give you some insight into more complex medical issues. When I worked CCT I worked with a RN who was a paramedic as well. I would always listen in on the reports he got and gave and then ask him about anything I didn't understand. It was a great learning environment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top