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Streamline the submission of patient care reports (PCRs) in paper form to the receiving hospital after transferring the patient.
Streamline the submission of patient care reports (PCRs) in paper form to the receiving hospital after transferring the patient.
Located 30 miles west of Chicago, the Addison Fire Protection District is an all-hazards emergency services organization providing fire, medical, rescue and safety educational services to the Village of Addison and the unincorporated areas surrounding the village.
The district resides in three fire stations professionally staffed with full-time, cross-trained firefighter-paramedics. Three advanced life support ambulances provide paramedic services and transportation to area hospitals.
In a typical year, the Addison Fire Protection District medics conduct around 2,800 transports to area hospitals. Like most EMS agencies in the area, the Addison medics submitted their patient care reports (PCRs) in paper form to the receiving hospital after transferring the patient. This process involved connecting to a shared printer in the hospital, printingout the form, and delivering it to the ED staff for scanning and inclusion in the patient’s electronic health record (EHR). In theory, the process should be quick and simple. But as with any paper-based system, there were often problems:
As a result, medics were delayed from returning to service and vital patient care information wasn’t getting into the EHR fast enough to be useful to the ED staff.
The Addison Fire Protection District was using ImageTrend Elite to create ePCRs that were then being printed and left at the area hospitals. The area hospitals had the capability to receive records directly into their EHRs via Direct secure messaging, or they could choose to receive them as a fax. Either delivery method was automated and relieved Addison Fire from the burden of connecting to a printer at the hospital.
The connectivity that made this new workflow possible was already included in the agency’s Kno2 account, which was integrated with their ImageTrend Elite system. Once the Kno2 account was activated, the connections were verified with six area hospitals.
The activation process took less than a month, and there was no heavy lifting from IT teams on either the agency or hospital side. Addison EMS tea ms could now submit the ePCRs directly, eliminating the printing of ePCRs altogether, and the ED staff had ready access to patients’ treatment information.
Right away, the Addison Fire Protection District saw improved turnaround time and improved efficiency for its medics. As Deputy Chief Erik Kramer noted, “Getting our medics back in service immediately upon cleaning/restocking has increased the potential of taking in the next medic call — and collecting that revenue that was normally lost.”
In addition to automating their ePCR workflows, the Addison Fire Protection District is an early adopter of the latest feature in the integration between ImageTrend Elite and Kno2. Kno2’s connection to Carequality provides connectivity to area hospital EHRs and the ability to query patient records in the field to support better pre-hospital care.
Having the ability to see a patient’s current medications, allergies, and known issues is going to be a big benefit for our teams going forward. It saves us time and provides us an accurate history about this patient, which helps us deliver better care sooner.
Erik Kramer
Deputy Chief
In addition to automating their ePCR workflows, the Addison Fire Protection District is an early adopter of the latest feature in the integration between ImageTrend Elite and Kno2. Kno2’s connection to Carequality provides connectivity to area hospital EHRs and the ability to query patient records in the field to support better pre-hospital care.
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