Blood thinner use disclosure vital for EMS care

March 30 (UPI) -- A study by the American College of Emergency Physicians suggests requiring emergency medical services, or EMS, personnel to ask about a patient's use of blood thinners could be vital to life-saving treatment, especially in older adults.

"Adding a question about the use of blood thinners in older adults to our field triage criteria could save lives," Dr. Craig Newgard, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Ore., said in a press release. "Older patients suffering head trauma who are taking blood thinners are more likely to suffer from bleeding in the brain that requires time-sensitive surgery at a major trauma center. Current EMS triage criteria do not include that question but this study suggests that maybe they should."

Researchers studied medical charts of 2,100 patients age 55 or older with head trauma who were taken to the hospital by EMS and found 19.8 percent of patients were correctly identified as having traumatic intracranial hemorrhage using standard field triage criteria.

When patients were also asked if they were taking anti-coagulant therapy, intracranial hemorrhage was identified in 59.5 percent of the patients.

"Use of steps one to three triage criteria is not sufficient for identifying intracranial hemorrhage and death or neurosurgery for older patients who suffer head trauma," Dr. Daniel K. Nishijima, of the University of California Davis School of Medicine, said. "While we wait for other studies to confirm our research, we strongly urge patients to make their medication history available and known to their families and EMS providers, especially for situations that may arise where they cannot speak for themselves. Knowledge of their use of blood thinners may help in getting these patients to the right hospital."

The study was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine