Essay: EMS Documentation

Sample Essay

Words 2,120

The EMS documentation is also important for legal reasons. Medical malpractice lawsuits are becoming more and more common. It is important to document all patient care, without proper documentation, it becomes impossible to prove in court that an adequate level of medical treatment was provided. In the absense of documentation, mere oral testimony sounds fishy to juries and the very fact that they neglected to complete the documention is enough to prejudice the juries against medical practitioners (National Association of EMS Physicians, 2002).

Because the documents may be presented in a court of law, it is necessary that the they are written in a legible handwriting so that non-medical people can also decipher them and that they uses only those abbreviations which are widely in use in the medical community. The forms used should be fully filled out with the blank spaces and unapplicable areas crossed out to prevent tampering or charges of tampering  (Brennan & Krohmer, 2005).

Another reason having good EMS documentation is important is because they are widely used in Quality assurance reviews. Quality assaurance reviewers regularly pick out and examine reports randomly to use in quality assaurance studies  (Brennan & Krohmer, 2005).

EMS documentation is also important for the process of billing. Many medical establishments charge on the basis of services offered, in this case the EMS documentation should include such items of information as miles travelled etc.  (Brennan & Krohmer, 2005)

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