Pre-hospital patient care documentation is going through a national transition into the 21st century. As of last year (2008) 11 states require EMS to submit PPCR data in an electronic format. Federal agencies project by the end of 2009 that 22 states will have adopted this mandate. Over the next 5 years or less electronic submissions will be a national standard and all states will export their PPCR data to a national pre hospital patient care database. This project will for the first time allow statistical data tracking at a statewide level and eventually on a national scale. With this, more opportunities than ever before will arise for state and federal funding for EMS.

Since 1986, MCA’s primary focus has been ambulance billing. As a billing service for over 150 EMS agencies throughout many states including West Virginia, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, and Kentucky; our job is to know EMS data collection and our success is dependent upon it.

After years of documentation training for countless EMS agencies and knowing about the move to electronic submission, we decided to use our experience and the feedback from our 150 EMS clients to develop MCA ePCR Field Data Collection Software. MCA ePCR will replace paper run sheets with software loaded on tablet PC’s.

When developing MCA ePCR we realized that EMS crew members who use this application will have varied experience with computer technology. Some have grown up using the Internet to get through high school, some are just getting the hang of email, while others may not know how to turn a computer on. This is why user friendliness has been our first priority. We have developed an easy to use tab based interface so that any one of over 220 data fields can be accessed within two to three clicks of a mouse or stylus. Development that integrates hand writing recognition allows crew members to input data without stroking a single key on the keyboard. MCA ePCR doesn’t just work with Windows Hand Writing Recognition; it has been developed around it. Tools like run templates for frequent facilities and common run types, address grab, zip code find, frequent patient database just to name a few allow for quick and accurate documentation to a level that with paper run sheets is simply unobtainable.

To learn more about the full feature list for MCA ePCR Software by MCA, Inc. visit the Feature Section.