Getting started

An EMS incident is any event that necessitates a ground or air response to a call for emergency medical services by a public or private emergency medical service organization. A patient is any victim at an EMS incident, that requires medical attention. An ePCR is the official file on a patient and the incident they were involved in. Complete ePCRs can make every step along the health care continuum more efficient, more accurate, and more conducive to positive patient outcomes.

NEMSIS is the national repository that stores EMS data from every state in the nation. If an incident—even incidents that do not involve fire—result in injuries or diseases, EMS data should be collected for each patient involved in the incident.

ESO's EHR module helps you capture data about circumstances and patients EMS personnel encounter during and after an incident response. Capturing this data before a patient arrives at a hospital is an important part of documenting pre-hospital treatments, collecting the right data needed to effectively treat the patient in-hospital, and managing appropriate billing information.

Note: Before you begin using the EHR module, you need to contact your ESO Suite administrator and ask them to enable tabs, fields, validations, defaults, and so forth, so that your agency can capture the data it needs. The administrator can also disable the display of tabs and fields that your department does not need, to streamline the EHR module to only the necessary fields.

Information on configurations and settings that affect the EHR module is available in Configure tabs.

  1. (If you have the appropriate roles and permissions) Configure settings needed to add and manage personnel records, as described in Configure EHR.

  2. Add a new patient record, or search for an existing patient record you want to work with, as described in Add a patient record and Search for a patient record.
  3. Capture the basic information about the incident, as described in Provide incident information.
  4. Identify the patient and record basic information about them, as described in Record patient information.
  5. Document the vitals information for the patient, as described in Add, edit, or delete vitals information.
  6. Treat the patient's condition, as described in Add, edit, or delete treatments.

  7. (If medications were involved) Verify the your identify, as described in Use positive identification with medication.

  8. Assess the patient and record your findings, as described in Assess the patient.
  9. Include a narrative of the patient's condition, injuries, or illness, as described in Include a patient narrative.
  10. Fill out any forms that pertain to the patient's condition and treatments, as described in Fill out treatment forms.
  11. Enter billing and payment information for the patient, as described in Gather billing information.
  12. Collect the required signatures that apply the patient's condition and treatment, as described in Collect signatures.
  13. Quickly access your agency's most commonly collected vitals, treatments, and medications, and alert medical facilities of the patient's impending arrival, as described in Access shortcuts for your agency's top actions.
  14. Determine whether you have supplied all required data, as described in Validate and lock a patient record.

  15. As needed, you can also work with the patient record in the following ways.