Patient Information in Noord-Brabant ambulances

[Canada Dave]

Greetings,

I was refered to this site by Pieter Joziasse. I am a university student in Canada doing a report that compares ambulance services in Canada and the Netherlands. Pieter informed me that this forum would be able to help me gather some information.

One question in particular regards the province of Noord-Brabant. I am trying to find some information on how patient information in the province is captured while in the ambulance on the way to a hospital. Does the nurse use a pen and paper, or is there an electronic method to record the information?

Any help that might provided would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you very much,
Dave

[Canada Dave]

I had found some information that some ambulances used an electronic touch-screen computer to collect information, some used a pen and paper, and some used a PDA, so I wasn't sure where Noord Brabant fit in. Do they use a mix of the three?

Thanks very much  
Dave

[CM]

Hello Dave and a warm welcome to this site,

I don't work full-time for Noord Brabant, but I have worked the odd shift there in the past (we are hired in via an employment agency). As far as I know the patient details are noted on a PRF and then retrospectively entered into the PC at the station. At this time there are, as far as I know, no PDA systems for patient details. It is however something that is a hot item here. At the service that I work for full-time we have a commision that is looking at different options. The intention is that we'll have a system up and running sometime next year.

Hope this helps,

Carl.

[Luke]

Hello Dave,

I don't know if Noord Brabant uses an electronic device for patient information, but the ambulance service of Limburg Noord does use such a system.
I've found a newsfragment covering this.
It is in dutch, but mayby you can use it anyway.
The website of the ambulance service of Limburg Noord is www.ravln.nl

With regards.

Luke

[Paul]

Noord Brabant still use pencil and paper to register, but in the near futher we are going to work with digital pc's.... witch tilburg (midden west brabant) is already doing in a pilot

sorry or my bad englisch

Feel free to send me a personal message

ambulance nurse/paramedic brabant noord

[Canada Dave]

Noord Brabant still use pencil and paper to register, but in the near futher we are going to work with digital pc's.... witch tilburg (midden west brabant) is already doing in a pilot

sorry or my bad englisch

Feel free to send me a personal message

ambulance nurse/paramedic brabant noord

Hi everyone,

Thank you all very much for your help! Sorry for taking so long to reply, but this project has been taking a lot of time!

Paul (or anyone else), would you happen to know the number of ambulances in the province of North Brabant? Also, do you know how many ambulance service providers operate in the province?

Thank you all very much for your help so far,
Canada Dave

[CM]

Dave,

I'll try and give you an answer to both questions, but I'm sure Paul will be able to give the exact figures that you're looking for.

The first question is relatively easy - there are about 50 ambulances in the region. They are all ALS units as we have one type of ambulance here in Holland. There are a small number of FD First Responders in smaller villages, but that's not really relevant to your question. I'd like to give you the exact figures but I can't find anything on the eastern part of the province. Their website (which used to one of the better EMS sites here) has disappeared into thin air. Strange, but true.

As far as the second question goes, this one is a bit tougher to answer without explaining a few things first. In the last few years there have been a lot of changes in the organizational structure within EMS. Originally there were a lot of individual organizations with a limited geographical area. Central government then decided, in it's wisdom, that EMS should be upscaled and geographically coupled with police and fire regions. This meant that a number of smaller, mostly privately owned EMS providers were "forced" to merge with the larger local health authority run services. Some merged, but others just co-exist under the same umbrella whilst benefitting from cooperation in terms of stock and vehicle management. On the outside you'd see no difference anyway, we already have a national standard for our uniforms and the appearance of the ambulance. There are currently three providers in the province, one of which is still a private organization and operates under the wings of one of it's big brothers.

1) Brabant South East (Eindhoven region)
2) Mid- North and West Brabant (the largest of the the three and covering eg. Tilburg and Den Bosch)
3) Timmermans (the privately owned company which operates under the wings of nr2).

Hope this helps, I've tried to be as accurate as I can, but I'm sure someone here will correct me if I'm wrong.

Take Care,

Carl.

[S a n d e r]

Is Timmermans onderhand ook niet, net als Bruijns, overgenomen door de GGD Hart voor Brabant?