Documentation Symbol Help - noobie

[jcl91827]

Learning my documentation symbols etc, new Emt-B, was wondering if anyone knew what the symbol was for a psychiatric patient? thanks

[snoopy911]

I am not sure what you mean by symbols, but typically, or at least what we use around here is the initials EDP for emotionally disturbed person.

[JPINFV]

Why would you use the term "psychiatric patient" in a narrative enough to need shorthand?

[FireMedic65]

be careful of how you label a patient.. you are not a doctor.. you can't make assumptions like that

[fiznat]

be careful of how you label a patient.. you are not a doctor.. you can't make assumptions like that

Below is the symbol for psych, although like others have I would caution you against using it. The purpose of our documentation is to facilitate communication between us and the physicians/nurses. Oftentimes, the more symbols and shortcuts you use, the less your documentation is understood. ...Even if the symbol or whatever is fairly commonplace. In general I think it is a good idea to avoid symbols except for the very common.

Anyways, here it is:

[HERBIE1]

Like any shorthand or abbreviation, it needs to be universally understood and accepted or it's useless since nobody will understand what you are trying to say.

As was noted, the greek letter psi is used. With some services radio "10 codes" are used, and years ago on the privates, we used 10-96 to designate a psychiatric(or potential) patient during radio traffic. In a written report, I would use an medical diagnosis- bipolar, schizophrenic, depression, etc. If you are seeing bizarre/abnormal behavior without a prior diagnosis, you simply describe what you see and hear- suicidal ideations, anxious, flat affect, visual or auditory hallucinations etc.

[tcripp]

Most services won't let you use symbols/abbreviations not on their approved list...so start there.

[Richard B the EMT]

If you have no documentation of the patient actually being an EDP, despite actions you witness saying they really are EDP, say, instead, possible EDP, or better, AMS for Altered Mental Status. You might even want to indicate "...of unknown ideology".

[uglyEMT]

our local protocol is as follows for that

Notify ED of person showing s&s of emotional distress without other factors as EDP so proper measures are in place upon arrivial.

Notify ED of person showing s&s of emotional distress with other factors (ie ETOH, drugs, head injury) as AMS so proper measures are in place upon arrivial.

Normally in or PCR we use discriptive wording vs saying AMS or EDP thus not diagnosing a patient but describing our observations. The only time we will write AMS or EDP is if it is a prediagnosed condition.

AMS will be used for head injury victims on our PCR is that is a finding.

Basically a good way the OP can find normally used abriviations is to get an EMS field guide. In the back are commonly used abriv. that are universally recognised. One thing is though, as my crew cheif always says, its better to spell out what your saying because you may know what you mean but 12 people not smart enough to get out of jury duty may not.

here is a link to a PDF showing commonly used EMS abbriviations Link Note on link: its is based out of Northern California so they have an additional page of hospital abbrivations that would not be used outside their service area.

Hope this helps

[FireMedic65]

Personally, in my opinion, all documentation should be written in plain English. This means no abbreviations, acronyms, 10-codes, etc etc...