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Ill preface this by admitting that it is a weird question.
Here is the background. I am a former psychologist turned law student working with an Innocence Project office. As such, I am often used to decode medical records relevant to our cases. In one of these, there are some things that just dont seem to add up to me. The paperwork from the ED consistently states that a person of interest arrived by ambulance at 12 (I am making up the time for confidentiality reasons). All of the other records of procedures and exams fit with this time of arrival except for one. The record of the blood draw for the purposes of a toxicology screen and ascertainment of blood alcohol level states that it happened at 11:45. We have corroborating evidence that the time of arrival at the ED was recorded correctly, so the only way the time for the blood draw can be accurate is if EMTs drew blood for diagnostic testing en route to the hospital.
I suspect that this is not something that EMTs regularly do, and I almost think they would not be allowed to do so even under exceptional circumstances since there would be no doctor ordering the diagnostic procedure and it doesn't seem related to emergency medical care. I suspect the draw occurred much later (perhaps several hours after the patient arrived at the hospital) and the time was changed to cover up the delay in running the time-sensitive test. I am, of course, completely pulling this opinion out of my ass so I would like to have someone more knowledgeable than I weigh in on this before I spend the better part of tomorrow looking up the various regulations. Can anyone confirm or disconfirm that EMTs do not or cannot draw blood for procedures unrelated to emergency medical treatment?
Thanks so much.
Here is the background. I am a former psychologist turned law student working with an Innocence Project office. As such, I am often used to decode medical records relevant to our cases. In one of these, there are some things that just dont seem to add up to me. The paperwork from the ED consistently states that a person of interest arrived by ambulance at 12 (I am making up the time for confidentiality reasons). All of the other records of procedures and exams fit with this time of arrival except for one. The record of the blood draw for the purposes of a toxicology screen and ascertainment of blood alcohol level states that it happened at 11:45. We have corroborating evidence that the time of arrival at the ED was recorded correctly, so the only way the time for the blood draw can be accurate is if EMTs drew blood for diagnostic testing en route to the hospital.
I suspect that this is not something that EMTs regularly do, and I almost think they would not be allowed to do so even under exceptional circumstances since there would be no doctor ordering the diagnostic procedure and it doesn't seem related to emergency medical care. I suspect the draw occurred much later (perhaps several hours after the patient arrived at the hospital) and the time was changed to cover up the delay in running the time-sensitive test. I am, of course, completely pulling this opinion out of my ass so I would like to have someone more knowledgeable than I weigh in on this before I spend the better part of tomorrow looking up the various regulations. Can anyone confirm or disconfirm that EMTs do not or cannot draw blood for procedures unrelated to emergency medical treatment?
Thanks so much.