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.
Our cohosts tackle system design, enhancing education standards and personal accountability
Steve Whitehead asks, does your pulse ox probe fail you, or do you fail it?
How advanced techniques like delayed-sequence intubation and NIPPV mitigate adverse outcomes in physiologically difficult airways
Wisconsin EMS Association speaker uses interactive and case-based learning to help EMS providers understand causes of abdominal pain
EMS providers need to understand anchoring, a type of cognitive bias, to prevent errors in prehospital patient assessment and care
The CO leak in a Wis. movie theater caused one woman to have a seizure and another to collapse
Careful assessment is important for EMS since alcohol poisoning kills six people in the U.S. each day; most deaths occur among middle-aged adults
Arrowhead EMS conference attendees sought out the best EMS products to improve patient care and enhance provider safety
You respond to a call for a cook that burned himself on a flat top grill; what are your first treatment steps
Sheriff’s officer alleges paramedic and ER doctor refused proper care to an intoxicated and injured man, saying he needed to “sleep it off”
4 Los Angeles police officers and 1 firefighter treated for CO exposure
Is EMS becoming too technical when it comes to patient care?
Md. medics transport 1 patient to hyperbaric unit for CO poisoning treatment
Once a patient is in the exam room, they can appear very different than the person EMS responded to on the street
Aberdeen fire and rescue looks for improvements with 15-lead ECG, invasive blood pressure monitoring, mechanical CPR, and impedance threshold devices
You respond to a female teenager complaining of headache, nausea, vomiting and dizziness; what is your “must not miss” diagnosis?
A brother and sister are recovering after the gas from a generator permeated the trailer where they were living
Medics donned PPE before carrying the feverish girls from their home; the scare reassured responders they’re equipped to manage the disease
The medic spent 41 minutes with the sick girl and believed her symptoms “of a mundane nature”
You respond to a man with shallow respirations and a weak pulse; what is your ‘must not miss’ diagnosis?
A flight photographer’s PR assignment quickly changes as he captures the response to a serious medical call
Luckily, EMS arrived behind firefighters to a call for difficulty breathing and evacuated the building when their carbon monoxide monitors went off
The rain was so heavy EMTs had to wade through ankle-deep water to find a man in cardiac arrest; Jessica Galvin sized up the situation and treated him on the scene
He fled from a psychiatric hospital as he was being loaded into an ambulance, and was hit by several cars when he ran onto a nearby busy highway
We need to modify our thinking to include serial 12-lead ECGs as part of our reassessment, just like we would reassess vital signs or pain scale
Follow this five-question framework to set the direction for your agency’s future, watch the system, and support vital processes
Pain is one of the primary reasons people call 911; there’s a growing concern in EMS that providers aren’t doing enough to assess, treat and relieve pain