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Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?

BACKGROUND: A shift from a predominantly emergency service, towards one where a wide range of conditions are managed and treated on scene presents numerous challenges for ambulance services and clinicians. The effective management of a broad range of patients and conditions in the ambulance setting...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Zorab, Ollie, Robinson, Maria, Endacott, Ruth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596371/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26446595
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-015-0054-1
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author Zorab, Ollie
Robinson, Maria
Endacott, Ruth
author_facet Zorab, Ollie
Robinson, Maria
Endacott, Ruth
author_sort Zorab, Ollie
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: A shift from a predominantly emergency service, towards one where a wide range of conditions are managed and treated on scene presents numerous challenges for ambulance services and clinicians. The effective management of a broad range of patients and conditions in the ambulance setting will have an impact on other parts of the health service including emergency departments and primary care. METHODS: A two part online survey was distributed to operational staff working for a regional UK ambulance service. Clinicians were asked to report their experiences of accessing patient information and making decisions about patient management based on four hypothetical patient scenarios. RESULTS: A survey of clinical staff (n = 302) revealed that (i) the vast majority experienced difficulties in accessing patients’ health information, (ii) this was particularly true in the out of hours period and (iii) They felt that better access would likely lead to more appropriate selection of care pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Decisions regarding the most appropriate care for patients presenting to the ambulance service are best informed by access to accurate and complete health information and records. An understanding of patients’ pre-existing medical conditions, recent treatments and health information is needed for the selection of the most appropriate care; this information is often difficult to obtain in the ambulance service setting. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12873-015-0054-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-45963712015-10-08 Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information? Zorab, Ollie Robinson, Maria Endacott, Ruth BMC Emerg Med Research Article BACKGROUND: A shift from a predominantly emergency service, towards one where a wide range of conditions are managed and treated on scene presents numerous challenges for ambulance services and clinicians. The effective management of a broad range of patients and conditions in the ambulance setting will have an impact on other parts of the health service including emergency departments and primary care. METHODS: A two part online survey was distributed to operational staff working for a regional UK ambulance service. Clinicians were asked to report their experiences of accessing patient information and making decisions about patient management based on four hypothetical patient scenarios. RESULTS: A survey of clinical staff (n = 302) revealed that (i) the vast majority experienced difficulties in accessing patients’ health information, (ii) this was particularly true in the out of hours period and (iii) They felt that better access would likely lead to more appropriate selection of care pathways. CONCLUSIONS: Decisions regarding the most appropriate care for patients presenting to the ambulance service are best informed by access to accurate and complete health information and records. An understanding of patients’ pre-existing medical conditions, recent treatments and health information is needed for the selection of the most appropriate care; this information is often difficult to obtain in the ambulance service setting. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12873-015-0054-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. BioMed Central 2015-10-07 /pmc/articles/PMC4596371/ /pubmed/26446595 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-015-0054-1 Text en © Zorab et al. 2015 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Zorab, Ollie
Robinson, Maria
Endacott, Ruth
Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?
title Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?
title_full Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?
title_fullStr Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?
title_full_unstemmed Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?
title_short Are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?
title_sort are prehospital treatment or conveyance decisions affected by an ambulance crew’s ability to access a patient’s health information?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4596371/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26446595
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12873-015-0054-1
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