Dear Editor,
I have worked in various emergency departments (EDs) and find the ambulance sheet invaluable for gleaning essential and important information regarding the patient brought to the ED by ambulance. For example, a patient presenting following a ‘seizure’ at 4 am, when a collateral history is almost impossible to source, the paramedic notes are vital.
The list is endless where our decision making hinges on the paramedic history. We live in an age of polypharmacy in an ever-increasing elderly population where medical records are disjointed and there is lack of unity between primary and secondary care notes. For these reasons, a comprehensive and up-to-date drug history is essential but often difficult to ascertain.
As pre-hospital practitioners you are in the enviable position of seeing the patient in their home, and when a drug history is hard to find in the confused patient in the middle of the night, your records again prove essential.
Often the box for drug history on the paramedic sheet is not completed on the basis that the medications are with the patient. When attending to the patient, a bag or list of medications is nowhere to be found. Can I make a plea that this box is always filled in?
Like the other areas of the history, we rely on you heavily and it can make a huge difference downstream in the patient journey.