Mandatory Radio Reports?

firefite said:
I've yet to see a trauma team all dressed up and expecting a crew to come in with a trauma.
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Do you not transport to Level I centers? When we go to a Level 1 we walk in the trauma bay and the whole team is scrubbed up and waiting. We can not move the patient over until everyone is quiet and we give a full report to the team

Otherwise, we only call the hospital for codes, stemi, stroke or trauma. Most hospitals either dont have a radio anymore or dont keep it on.
 
Even when we transport to Level I trauma centers; and called in a bad patient the most I ever got was a couple of nurses; and we give the report as we are moving the patient over to their bed. Doc would usually walk in and listen; But the nurses did everything.
 
FeatherWeight said:
Recently I was talking about radio reports with my supervisor who was formerly a medic from Texas, he was telling me how they never even made radio reports and just show up to the hospital without giving them a heads up. I'm not sure if this was just a old school way of running calls or if Texas or anywhere else still does this? Can anyone confirm this because that blows my mind how they would allow this.
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Here in Seattle, Harborview does not want HEAR reports. We just show up. ALS calls in a HEAR because they need to talk to the Medic Doc anyway. Airlift will call in to give them a heads up.

All of our other hospitals require HEAR reports. The worst one that angers me the most is the Veterans Administration hospital. I think someone needs to explain to them that the point of a HEAR is to give them an idea of what is coming, not to give a detailed explanation of the patients condition.
 
The Seattle VA determines if they'll accept the patient based on the report you give. Try bringing an "injury from a fall" there. If they even THINK its trauma, they'll divert you
 
Bullets said:
Do you not transport to Level I centers? When we go to a Level 1 we walk in the trauma bay and the whole team is scrubbed up and waiting. We can not move the patient over until everyone is quiet and we give a full report to the team

Otherwise, we only call the hospital for codes, stemi, stroke or trauma. Most hospitals either dont have a radio anymore or dont keep it on.
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If we call the hospital and let them know what we have then yes they are all ready to go.

The reason I said that was because some were making it sound as tho the hospital is always ready to take anything in and that is why it was useless to call the hospital.

Call the hospital = team ready to go and bed ready.
No call = no team ready. No bed ready. Pissed off doctors and nurses.
 
A few of the hospitals in my area have dedicated comm centers. They do nothing but take radio reports from EMS and dispatch HEMS.

I've never heard of a hospital that didn't want at the least a heads up with the general condition of incoming EMS patients.
 
Like what a lot of people have stated here, when I was working in a rural area, we notified the hospital for every patient. We call our reports in by cell phone, little easier and keeps patient info private.

Now that I'm working urban, we only notify when we're bringing in major trauma, an arrest, etc.
 
n7lxi said:
The Seattle VA determines if they'll accept the patient based on the report you give. Try bringing an "injury from a fall" there. If they even THINK its trauma, they'll divert you
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Seattle VA is a bunch of morons. I have never had a problem bringing them a patient. As long as the patient is a veteran they accept them. You have to give last 4 of SSN as part of the HEAR.

They treat us like utter crap though. The other day I took a patient there and he couldn't sign the computer (he was shaking because of pain and flat out refused to sign saying I could do an X for him which I was not going to do). The nurse flipped out and argued for 10 minutes on how she has never signed for a patient before. It took another nurse coming out and telling the original nurse to either sign for the patient or get out of the way and she would sign.

I have never seen such a total disregard for patients. Everytime we roll in I get the feeling that we are interupting their naps. They treat patients like crap to.

A few years ago there was talk of improving VA hospitals has several complaints have been received by Senators. I have not heard anything in a couple of years though. I have personal feelings against them though which I won't go into.

Best hospital - Seattle Childrens. Always smiling when we roll in and very friendly on the HEAR.

Harborview as mentioned doesn't take HEAR reports. You roll in and they triage right there. If they see patient is serious or critical then they call an alert and the appropriate team responds. We bypass triage and go directly into the room in these cases. In my experience, the trauma team is there before I get the seatbelts off the patient. Usually they end up taking the patient off of my stretcher for me. Very quick process, very efficient for them. ALS will call in HEAR though.

HEAR reports don't always speed the process.
 
An RT call to the hospital is only required when the patient has a time critical problem (status 1), requires a monitored bed or if we are transporting more than 2 patients to the same hospital.
 
Call ahead for-

STEMIs
Unstable pt's (all L&s transport to hospital)
Trauma requiring trauma room or response (the they decide trauma alert or response, response includes having a trauma surgeon waiting in the ED)
Pt's requiring security etc

If in doubt and I think the hospital will benefit ill call ahead for sick patients. I'd rather have a few calls maybe not needed then not given them adequate notice.
 
johnrsemt said:
Even when we transport to Level I trauma centers; and called in a bad patient the most I ever got was a couple of nurses; and we give the report as we are moving the patient over to their bed. Doc would usually walk in and listen; But the nurses did everything.
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Damn really?

We only have a Level II. They have 4 levels of trauma alerts. Green, yellow and red then a pre-alert. We can only call pre-alerts on certain things (profound hypotension, unconscious with a unilaterally blown pupil or GSW to the torso. Also, for a pre-alert it's through my dispatch center and all I have to give is "I have a trauma pre-alert for (one of the listed above) with an ETA of xx" and that's all, don't have to call the hospital.

Pre-alerts get a trauma surgeon and their minions along with an Anesthesiologist to the ER and also automatically gets an OR prepped and all the support staff shows up that's listed below as well.

Red gets the trauma doc and their minions, an ER doc their minions plus all the support staff (respiratory, lab, CT, Xray, ect)

Yellow alerts the trauma doc and their minions but doesn't require them to come to the ER unless requested by the ER doc, also the same support staff for a red

Green is a tech or two, a nurse or two and an ER doc, pages support staff but they aren't always there.

Pre-alerts and Reds are pretty cool to watch. Controlled chaos, if you will. Both involve anywhere from 7-10 providers of various levels and departments being in the ER Trauma bay waiting for us. It can get a touch crowded and it isn't uncommon for staff to get booted from the room.
 
johnrsemt said:
Even when we transport to Level I trauma centers; and called in a bad patient the most I ever got was a couple of nurses; and we give the report as we are moving the patient over to their bed. Doc would usually walk in and listen; But the nurses did everything.
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Really? I have had instances where I only got a couple nurses, but most of the time I get at least one doc. I have had plenty of times where I got the entire trauma team, and have even had the doc meet me in the ambulance bay a couple times. I wonder what I am doing differently than you, since I know you are referring to the same ERs as me?
 
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