Patient Assessment
Patient assessment is the process an EMT or paramedic follows to evaluate an injured or ill patient. The process includes a scene size-up, which is the identification and mitigation of risks, a primary assessment to find and fix life threats and a secondary assessment to perform a focused history and physical exam of the patient. Each step is an opportunity to collect information that will guide treatment and inform a transport decision. In the EMS1 Patient Assessment topic find the latest news about patient assessment and top resources to improve your patient assessment skills.
Common agents used in drug-facilitated sexual assault: How to recognize them and how they impact care
New research explores how point-of-care lung ultrasound can improve prehospital identification of acute heart failure
Complacency can creep in after routine calls, but true emergencies don’t wait
You are dispatched to a bank for a woman who is weak and lethargic.
Here’s how EMS recognition and initiation of interventions can lower sepsis mortality
A single prehospital treatment protocol for respiratory distress from asthma or COPD is reasonable
A comic for EMS drawing off the real experiences of EMS
400 instructors, volunteers and patient actors, along with with 26 ambulances and two helicopters, helped paramedic students complete 70 different scenarios
Focus on assessing and treating the patient’s basic life threats before interrogating bystanders or investigating the scene
You were asked to assess and treat a 22-year-old woman with an obvious leg fracture and there was a disagreement about how to proceed; did you make the right call?
You are dispatched to a local park for an adult with a traumatic extremity injury
Here’s how to understand the role of EMS in unraveling the pre-puncture problem for patients with large vessel occlusive stroke
Wheezes, retractions, tachypnea and altered mental status lead to a quick assessment of asthma
A full life weighs more than an empty one, but who I have become because of my EMS experience has made me a better friend and caregiver
End-tidal carbon dioxide is an irrefutable indication for any type of airway adjunct
Our co-hosts talk about a new tool this mother developed to train EMS on working with autistic patients
You were asked to assess and treat a potential stroke in a 39-year-old man found unresponsive while working out; did you make the right call?
You are asked to respond to the fitness room at a local hotel
Standardizing the transition of care helps improve patient safety and ensure the patient’s care is smooth and no information is lost
Organize your trauma kit so regular intravenous catheters are not mixed with catheters with backflow preventing or blood control valves
The teacher said he started to feel numbness in his hand before falling to the floor
It is important to differentiate tension pneumothorax from conditions with similar symptoms, and to avoid performing inappropriate needle decompression
Learn the signs and symptoms for this significant pediatric airway and ventilation emergency
Health care accreditation and safety organizations have cited alarm fatigue as a top patient safety risk
The Excellance, Inc. ambulance allows medics to perform CT scans of suspected stroke patients and transmit images to neurologists
Review the subtle signs of an acute ST-elevation MI with this case of a man presenting with “heavy” chest pain
The children’s mother found them in their bedroom and she attempted CPR
Use ETCO2 monitoring to avoid inappropriate hyperventilation, recognize abnormal respiratory patterns and guide care
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- Article bites: Compassion first: Mortality risk of patients with psychogenic nonepileptic seizures
- American College of Emergency Physicians reconsiders position on excited delirium
- Quick Take: Risk factors and interventions for patients with TBI
- EMS syncope assessment secondary to traumatic injury
- Unique patient signs: A case study