Not all sepsis starts with disease. Some of it starts with us. Iatrogenic sepsis, caused by healthcare interventions, accounts for a significant portion of sepsis cases. In emergency medicine, the environment, pace, and procedures create real risk. The good news: most of it is preventable. Environmental Risk EMS operates in uncontrolled environments: Trauma scenes Outdoor […]
Few debates in EMS are as persistent, or as misunderstood, as “scoop and run” versus “stay and play.” Many providers feel pressure to pick a side early in their careers, often based on how they were trained or what their agency culture promotes. In reality, this is not a fixed philosophy. It is a clinical […]
Every EMS provider enters the field focused on doing the right thing. You learn the steps, memorize protocols, and work hard to perform every intervention correctly. That structure build safety, consistency, and confidence early in your career. But over time, something changes. You stop focusing on doing everything, and start focus on doing what matters. […]
EMS documentation does more than record what happened on a call. A well-written patient care report supports continuity of care, legally protects providers, and helps agencies improve clinical performance through quality review and data reporting. The narrative report is where the story of the call comes together. Vital signs, procedures, and medications appear in structured […]
Most EMS calls follow a familiar pattern: assess, stabilize, transport. Even high-acuity calls usually fall within well-practiced routines. Occasionally, however, providers encounter situations where the only path to patient survival involves procedures they studied in training and hoped to never encounter in real life. This is the story of one of those calls: a field […]
Every EMT remembers learning a million things in school and immediately forgetting half of them once the pager went off. That is normal. What separates solid EMTs from overwhelmed ones is not memorization. It is skill mastery. These are the essential EMT skills that show up again and again on real calls. Not the obscure […]
Mass casualty incidents do not care how prepared you feel. One moment you are running a routine call and the next you are surrounded by more patients than resources. This is where trauma triage and tagging becomes one of the most important skills in EMS. Triage is not about being perfect. It is about doing […]
March is Women’s History Month and here at IMPACT EMS, we will be highlighting the work of a small handful of women who have blazed trails in the field of EMS. First up: Marie Marvingt, a world class multi-sport athlete, aviator, surgical nurse, and all around badass. She was the third woman IN THE HISTORY […]
Stay and Play We’ve all had those critical patients: the ones circling the drain when we show up who bring the “pucker factor.” As EMTs and paramedics, our first reaction is to “grab and go” and get that patient to the familiar environment of our ambulance. It makes sense, right? That’s our office, all of […]
Well-Being Sounds Nice. Evidence shows that employees who participate in Wellness/Well-Being programs have reduced lifestyle diseases, reduced stress, and improved overall well-being [1,2,3]. You might also find Wellness topics on the interwebs, but when you read the advice and suggestions you quickly realize that Well-Being is Well-Meaning but translates poorly to EMS life! Common advice […]
