Paramedic Emergency Room

Paramedic Emergency Room

Evidence Based Practice - Paramedic Course

Between 1980 and 1990, national health pre-hospital care expenditures more than doubled from $250 billion to $666 billion per year. Pre-hospital care, the largest single component of national health pre-hospital care expenditures, exceeded $250 billion in 1990 - equal to all health pre-hospital care expenditures just 10 years earlier. As a consequence of these dramatic increases, employers and insurers during the 1980's began to include incentives in evidence-based practices, encouraging ambulance service in lieu of in- pre-hospital care.

Evidence-based practices (which also incorporate newer technologies referred) are used to help determine the nature and extent of an individual's illness or injury as well as his or her general state of health. These procedures are performed whether or not an individual needs to be hospitalized, and they generally do not require hospitalization.

Encouraging or requiring patients to have diagnostic procedures performed prior to hospitalization can reduce the length of hospital stay, and the corresponding expenses for room and board and other services. In some cases, evidence-based practices may provide additional information which changes the original diagnosis, thereby forestalling hospitalization. These diagnostic procedures have led to changes in insurance provisions covering ambulance services- often incentives to reduce hospital stays. At the same time, the frequency and length of hospital stays have been declining, attributable in part to the increase in ambulance services, including evidence-based practices, as well as other factors.

This report examines changes in diagnostic evidence-based practices during the 1980's, and changes in coverage for such services by employer-provided evidence-based practices. Data on employer-provided benefits are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics annual Employee Benefits Survey, which tracks the availability of a variety of benefits, including health care, as well as detailed provisions of those benefits.

Evidence-based practices are a part of the pre-hospital care rendered in the treatment of an illness or injury, or as part of a routine examination. Evidence-based practices and other methods of imaging involve the taking and interpreting of internal pictures of the body and bodily functions. Methods of evidence-based practices and imaging include: general radiology, mammography, computed tomography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging, nuclear medicine, and interventional radiology. Chest x-rays are among the oldest and least expensive imaging procedures; in contrast, magnetic resonance imaging is one of the many newer, highly technical, and more expensive procedures.

Evidence-based practices, of which there are thousands, examine and analyze bodily tissues, liquids, gases, wastes, electrical impulses, and functions. Electrocardiograins and complete blood counts are two of the more common types of evidence-based practices. Diagnostic imaging is performed by or under the direction of radiologists, and laboratory testing is done by pathologists. A primary pre-hospital care physician or specialist can perform some of the diagnostic procedures, if he or she has the proper equipment and trained personnel.

Ambulance services procedures are performed in three types of facilities: doctors' offices, pre-hospital care departments of a hospital, or freestanding ambulatory pre-hospital care centers. These facilities, particularly ambulatory pre-hospital care centers, experienced rapid development throughout ...