What Ems charting system do you use?

Fastfrankie19151

Forum Crew Member
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Well like the title says what is everyone using? The non emergent transport company I am affiliated with we currently use cloud pcr and a separate home brew program for fleet tracking and certification management etc. We are considering switching to Trauma Soft for everything has anyone used it? Good bad or both I would love to hear everyone’s opinions on it and any other suggestions on what you use and like or dislike?
 

DrParasite

The fire extinguisher is not just for show
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I've used ESO and EMSCharts. TBH, I preferred EMSCharts, as it had a shorter learning curve, but users (especially older ones) needed to be taught how to actually fill out the fields. ESO just took forever for me to complete a chart, while I could get 80% of my chart done on EMScharts before we hit the ER doors. I've never heard of the two you mentioned, but as long as you are given computers, and can do your chart while transporting the NET, you should be fine. but make sure it works for your agency in your system.

I don't know about fleet tracking, but I've seen certificate tracking incorporated into scheduling software (we currently use aladtech, but my favorite scheduling software is still whentowork, especially for a big system (more than 10 units on at any given time).
 

Tigger

Dodges Pucks
Community Leader
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ESO has the most polished data management abilities of any program I've ever used. It is certainly a tablet optimized program and has some unique hardware requirements, but when set up correctly it seems to work quite well. For what it's worth it was also designed by paramedics to be user friendly and quick which I think it is, but have also been using it since 2011 so that just might be experience. ESO now offers a scheduler that will also track certifications. I think for the total package it can't really be beat, and (less relevant to the OP), it now has a fire reporting option as well.

EMSCharts is relatively fast to write charts on but miserable for QA/QI purposes. They were also recently purchased by Zoll and I am curious how long Zoll will continue to support them as they already have Rescuenet in their portfolio which is very established. I didn't particularly like Rescuenet when I used it a long while ago.

ERS is hot garbage. Slow, buggy, poorly optimized for anything off a desktop.

I always thought AMR could make a pretty good revenue stream off MEDS, it's fast to use, has good data management, etc.
 

BobBarker

Forum Lieutenant
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ImageTrend and I love it. Easy to use, easy to learn and a lot of customization is available per our training department.
 

FiremanMike

Just a dude
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ImageTrend is significantly more customizable than ESO (from what my colleagues have told me, admittedly I’ve never seen the back end of ESO). I really pushed ESO hard until I started talking to the back end guys at area departments who absolutely hate it. From their description, ESO is what it is, whether you’re FDNY EMS or Podunk EMS.

We did field testing of ImageTrend and the guys picked it up almost immediately with almost no instruction.

I work on the back end (although I do still regularly take runs and enter runs on the front end) and I can say that ImageTrend is almost infinitely customizable and very easy to data-mine. Building forms (what your medics will see on the front end while entering reports) is drag and drop with fields that are pre-programmed with EMSIRS3/NFIRS codes. You can also create your own custom fields for data points that you want to track, these custom fields can also be data-mined..

Plus, who doesn’t love using iPads for patient care reporting?!

I can’t speak for TraumaSoft.. when I started the quest for a new EMS software, we were coming from a small EMS software company that no one had heard of that ONLY did EMS reporting and billing export. We wanted a single software package handled all of our records management. I also didn’t want to consider small companies anymore, which pretty much led to ESO or ImageTrend.
 
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DesertMedic66

Forum Troll
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I was actually a fan of AMR/GMR’s MEDS system. It wasn’t difficult to use at all.

My ground agency switched to ImageTrends a couple of years ago and I was one of the beta testers for it. Overall it is a great program with tons of customization options for what your agency needs. I use it so little now that I am no where near proficient with it but I can knock out a chart in 30 minutes.

My flight agency uses EMSCharts. I would not be sad if that program burnt to the ground. It’s clunky, confusing, very limited, things don’t make sense, and it’s pretty much impossible to use on an iPad or similar tablet.
 

GMCmedic

Forum Deputy Chief
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I look forward to EMScharts again. I used to hate it.......then I tried Goldenhour.
 

NomadicMedic

I know a guy who knows a guy.
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My regional EMS office provides ESO to all of the agencies in our region. We specifically chose ESO for its ease-of-use by providers in the field and it’s extremely robust data reporting. For anyone who says that reports are not easy to obtain in ESO is mistaken. I can pull reports based on any of the NEMSIS 3.0 set or the custom fields that we require for our regional data needs.

If you are in ESO user and having difficulty generating reports that you need for your agency, I Recommend that you take their ad HOK report training and speak to your customer service representative. The majority of reports that you might need are already built, and anything you need customized for your agency can be easily changed or created from scratch.

At a recent regional users group meeting, there were no reports that agencies wanted that were not able to be created by changing a few parameters in already existing reports.
 

FiremanMike

Just a dude
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My regional EMS office provides ESO to all of the agencies in our region. We specifically chose ESO for its ease-of-use by providers in the field and it’s extremely robust data reporting. For anyone who says that reports are not easy to obtain in ESO is mistaken. I can pull reports based on any of the NEMSIS 3.0 set or the custom fields that we require for our regional data needs.

If you are in ESO user and having difficulty generating reports that you need for your agency, I Recommend that you take their ad HOK report training and speak to your customer service representative. The majority of reports that you might need are already built, and anything you need customized for your agency can be easily changed or created from scratch.

At a recent regional users group meeting, there were no reports that agencies wanted that were not able to be created by changing a few parameters in already existing reports.
I was speaking about customization, no idea on data mining..
 

johnrsemt

Forum Deputy Chief
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At my part time job we use Image Trend and I love it, easy to learn easy to use.

At my FT job we use paper, and come back to station and try to use ERS (Emergency Reporting) which we used to be able to use on our phones or personal tablets, but then upper management got involved and now we can only use in on a computer that we use a CAC card (Computer Access Card card {redundant I know}) on. It sucks for EMS, but it was picked out by a deputy fire chief so go figure.
 

Fezman92

NJ and PA EMT
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Someone mentioned EMS Charts/Zoll?
 

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fm_emt

Useless without caffeine
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I love ESO. I also use Image Trends and our implementation of it is hot garbage. Takes forever to get anything done.

I've seen MEDS that AMR uses and it was actually not too bad. Just needs bigger buttons for us meat finger types. :)
 
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