Johnson County is receiving feedback from a number of hospital systems regarding our EMS System providers discontinuing patient monitoring prematurely for patients who require monitoring.

The situations typically involve Time-Critical Diagnoses such as Stroke, STEMI and Trauma. Since the Zoll monitors have been introduced, hospital staff are reporting they have seen a number of patients come into the hospital ED/ICU/Cath lab without any monitoring (EKG, pulse ox etc.).

It is mandated that all TCD patients (or any patient who is critical ex. CPAP, respiratory failure, advanced airway) need to be continually monitored when leaving the ambulance.

The monitoring must be maintained until the hospital staff have transitioned their monitors onto the patient (or the hospital elects to discontinue).

This is especially important for EKG/rhythm monitoring and ETCO2 for advanced airways. Read the full memo.