What is your EMS age? Sometimes, gauging your EMS age can be as simple as recalling the model number of your first cardiac monitor. Or, these days, it could be gauged by how you keep track of or store your EMS data.

Creating a clinically solid, medically sound, and billing-compliant EMS patient care record is critical not just to patient health, but EMS operational health as well. How is your EMS operations measuring up? How do you use key metrics to improve your EMS data entry and documentation?

EMS agencies have been talking about if/when to move away from paper EMS trip reports to electronic EMS trip reports for ages. In the past, the cost comparison between purchasing base computers or ruggedized laptops and handwritten EMS trip reports or scannable forms proved formidable barriers for so many EMS agencies. Thankfully, in recent years as EMS agencies have begun using ePCR software to document EMS trip reports with more frequency, discussions have moved away from paper versus electronic to the benefits of moving to Online EMS software versus on-site software.