Why waste time at hospital?

adamNYC

adamNYC

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I've been noticing EMS guys, after dropping off pt at the hospital, spending 20mins or so just killing time before they "green up" and take calls again. Why is this? Maybe I'm a student and never worked calls yet but I can already see myself not wanting to waste time and wanting to take as many calls as possible throughout the day. What's you guys' take on this?
 
I mean I can understand if it was crazy calls with alot of lifting and exhaustion but these were some very basic non-critical "sick" calls. After doing 4 ride along tours I guess I'm still hungry to see a trauma or arrest.
 
Oddly enough, if there were more significant calls, most of us might clear sooner.

If you are too much of a go-getter, you may find that no one wants to work with you. Everyone has their "pace" that they like operate at. Your best move is to try and match partner, whether faster or slower. Good luck trying to motivate your unmotivated veteran partner to work at your pace.

While pt care is our job, good pt care happens when you and your partner work as a team.
 
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Likely they are completing PCRs
 
adamNYC said:
I've been noticing EMS guys, after dropping off pt at the hospital, spending 20mins or so just killing time before they "green up" and take calls again. Why is this? Maybe I'm a student and never worked calls yet but I can already see myself not wanting to waste time and wanting to take as many calls as possible throughout the day. What's you guys' take on this?
Click to expand...

This is like asking why people waste time in bars when there's always so much work to be done at the office.
 
Doing paperwork, being friendly with hospital staff, BSing with crews, resting after a call, I get car sick so taking some time helps me feel better. Killing the clock if our end of shift time is close. There are a lot of reasons
 
The nurses' lounge is stocked with vegetable trays and dip, or muffins and sweet breads.. Sometimes it's the only chance we get to grab a bite.. Unless we do a transfer to Abbot Northwestern.. They have a fully stocked fridge in the EMS lounge..
 
I will agree BSing with other crews and frequenting the EMS lounge at some EDs are nice :) at one point there were 7 trucks of the same ambulance company all hanging by the ED and the nurses told us to leave if we didn't need to be there. I found that to be amusing haha
 
When dropping patients off at the ER, there's a LOT activity that really has to occur. One is that a patient report must be completed by the crew and provided to the ER staff. Sure, I can give a 60 second report about the patient that allows the ER staff to begin providing care with some kind of idea about what care I provided, but the details will be in my report. Also the ambulance equipment must be cleaned, linens re-stocked and put on the cot, any trash cleaned up and properly stowed or thrown away, and the like. Once all that is completed, then part of the crew is now "free" to schmooze with the ER staff or other crews, hit the head, raid the EMS refrigerator, or even (gasp) lounge about. Quite literally once the ambulance is ready to go again, the crew should be calling in "available, doing paperwork" and dispatch is going to expect that within about 10 minutes or so that will be complete and you'll be 100% ready for action.

When I was actively working in the field, I would usually get most of my paperwork done while on the way to the ER so that all I'd have to do is get a couple signatures, write a few necessary lines, and turn in the ER copy. This effectively maximized the time we'd have at the ER to take care of any personal needs and whatnot before we'd be sent back out on a call.

While doing most of our transfer calls, we'd be complete and ready for another run right at 70 minutes. When I was doing ER work (urban) we could usually leave the station and be back in bed in 43 minutes. Yes, I checked...

Since we were scheduled for nearly back-to-back with calls, we did our best to ensure that our needs were met too, so anytime we could find a few free minutes, we'd take it.
 
I used to be that guy who would clear the hospital asap after dropping off a customer. Problem is i found myself running 2-3 times more calls than everyone else in my house (3 trucks total). That is a recipe for quick burnout. Pace yourself,your agency owns you for 24-48 hours.
 
Sometimes it's a few minutes of BS talking to other crews. You did talk to your coworkers in your last job, right?

Sometimes it's a few minutes of BS talking to that hot red head RN.

Sometimes it take a few minutes to finish up the report and decon the rig and reset everything.

Sometimes there are lazy a-holes who thinks that just because they have 20 minutes to clear, they can take 20 minutes to sit with their thumbs up their butt.

...that last group can go procreate with themselves.
 
We can't. Not only are there some crews (who if already there) that help you get back in service but we don't have the units to hang around for 10 or even 15 minutes unless we're "posted" there (and then medic or emt has to write their tag) .
It sucks sometimes.
 
In addition to the reasons listed already, when I worked private ambulance that did street corner posting, you could call clear from the run to dispatch, have them acknowledge it, then still sit and wait 20 minutes for them to decide where to post you (or give you your next call). Since in the meantime you're effectively posted at that hospital, you've more often than not got decent free wifi, bathrooms, food to scrounge (if they don't provide an EMS fridge the cafeteria is still usually pretty decent, at least compared to the take out and fast food places you have to rely on when posting) etc etc. If it's not to busy at the hospital, there's pretty much no need to hurry dispatch up, remember sometimes dispatch may not like the implication of you telling them they're not doing their job if they leave you at the hospital, you may find your next posting site is a public park with absolutely nothing there, except maybe the dingiest public toilet (notice that is singular) available.

At my current job where we have set assigned stations that we're in for the whole shift, if we're still at the hospital after finishing the run usually we're catching up with our other crews that we don't get the chance to see very much otherwise. Even if we still technically haven't gone available yet we still have our radios on us and will take calls as they come out so we're still not really missing anything.
 
It never bothered me much when people would make available and ask permission to hang at the hospital for a while.
What was annoying is when my partner and I and another medic crew both got to the hospital at the same time, we did our job marked in service and did 3 more runs in the area (including 2 returns from that hospital) before the other medic marked in service.

I am glad that I always worked with people that had good work ethics; and sometimes when you work for a good private company you get bonuses for doing a good job. And believe me management knows (or should) who is wasting time and who is working.
I got gas cards, movie tickets, resturaunt vouchers etc for doing a good job
 
Everyone has a line. You can bet if we just ran three calls back to back that I am not clearing the hospital till dispatch tells us to clear for coverage or another call. We have twenty minutes at the hospital and I have no issue using them if we've been given calls with the patient still on the cot for for the better part of a shift. It's not wasting time, it's taking care of yourself and your partner.

I will say that the ambulance needs to be ready to roll before anything else takes place.
 
The system I work in we exchange drug boxes and replace IV fluids at the hospital pharmacy. A couple of the hospitals for whatever reason have pharmacies that are a 10 minute walk from the ER. Take advantage of the down time because there will be days where you barely get a chance to breathe. My first partner told me to eat, sleep, and pee whenever you get a chance in EMS because no never knows when the next chance to do any of those will be.
 
adamNYC said:
I've been noticing EMS guys, after dropping off pt at the hospital, spending 20mins or so just killing time before they "green up" and take calls again. Why is this? Maybe I'm a student and never worked calls yet but I can already see myself not wanting to waste time and wanting to take as many calls as possible throughout the day. What's you guys' take on this?
Click to expand...
To maintain sanity.
 
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