Emergency medical services
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Administering the right medication in the right dose via the right route to the right patient is essential to quality patient care. Providers must be educated on all related policies and periodically reviewed. ⋯ EMS administrators, employers, providers and medical directors must work together to identify system problems and establish policies and procedures for efficient and effective prevention of medication errors. Until next time, be safe!.
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EMS providers should be familiar with and well practiced in a variety of available intubation techniques, so that when an airway problem occurs, it can be managed. However, with the rapid advancements in airway management technology, many EMS providers have not had an opportunity to use the equipment in real-patient situations. ⋯ Participating in specialized airway courses and workshops is an excellent means of introducing the manual skills required to implement airway devices, but practice on manikins does not accurately simulate "real" patient situations and therefore is often not directly applicable. EMS organizations and educational facilities must provide learning opportunities to implement new airway technologies and skills.
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Accurate prehospital diagnosis and early initiation of emergency medical treatment for pediatric patients found to have supraventricular tachycardia is a reasonable task to accomplish and one that does not have to be anxiety-provoking. The most important point to remember is that the standard approach to resuscitation and stabilization for pediatric patients with narrow complex tachycardias (and those with aberrant or wide complexes identifiable as WPW) applies to all variations of SVT; thus, it is not necessary to precisely diagnose the variant prior to initiation of treatment, except for WPW, in which adenosine administration is contraindicated. ⋯ Dosages of medications need not be memorized, provided that a readily available guide, such as a Broselow tape or regional tertiary care center laminated resuscitation card, is at hand. Finally, while termination of pediatric SVT, whether spontaneous or by EMS intervention, will also likely terminate the EMS provider's own palpitations, it is essential that these patients be seen in an emergency department immediately in order to accurately diagnose their medical condition and provide the patient and family with an appropriate disposition based on the events surrounding the incident.