How can I help my patients more?

A patient comes into my ICU unit and is awake, but tired, not feeling well, and falls asleep in between my questions and the swarm of nurses that are admitting her into the ICU room.

The only information I know about them is what the ER told me and the few snips my patient will tell me.

There is no family with her.

I don't have time right now to do an excavation of the electronic record to find out any details or even if she is in our system.

From my assessment, I can tell:

- She has a pacemaker in.

- She has various bruising on her arms.

- Her EKG shows a normal sinus tachycardia.

- She looks thin and frail.

- She is elderly, in her 70's.

She tells me:

- "I take a blood thinner, the yellow one."

- "I take a purple pill.

- "My daughter lives out of state. She doesn't know I am here. I don't remember her phone number."

In her purse, I find:

- A wallet with her personal identification.

- No contact information.

- No family information.

- No medical information.

- No medication information.

- No provider information.

From this, I can presume:

- She has a cardiac arrhythmia history.

- She is on anti-coagulants, but I don't know exactly the type, name or the dose - or when she last took them

- She is on a proton-pump inhibitor, but I don't know the name or the dose

- I don't know any other medications she is on

- She is thin, probably not eating enough

- She looks frail, does she have caretakers?

- Her providers include a primary care physician and a cardiologist, but I don't know who they are

There is definitely a lot of missing information.

Will I be able to find it?

Most probably, with time, digging, and phone calls, I will find some or most of it.

But that takes time.

Time I don't have right now.

The questions in my mind right now are:

- What am I missing?

- What are her diagnoses?

- What meds to I really need to know about right now? And what meds could wait?

- If I don't know her diagnoses and meds, will I miss something big?

How can I help her prevent these holes in the future?

My eBook: 'Be A Prepared Patient: Three Quick Steps' has all the tools she would need to give us everything we need next time:

1. wallet card with her health information, medications, providers and people to contact.

2. A large refrigerator card with all this information to keep on her refrigerator that EMS 911 could reference and grab when they bring her in

3. A reference card for EMS 911 with the TOP SIX THINGS TO TELL EMS like diagnoses, implants, medications, and proxy, that would get them started and then they could share that with us.

The ebook download is FREE!

You can be the HERO!

Check it out here and help your patients, family, neighbors, friends, and yourself be ready when they need to tell their story!

Click Here to BE THE HERO! Be A Prepared Patient: Three Quick Steps!

Inspire and Be Inspired!

Audrey Friedman, RN