You may have noticed some of the EMSIRS-3 pick lists have become extremely large. That’s because several EMSIRS-3 data elements rely on national and international standards to provide the data element’s allowed values. For example, the element “eMedications.03” (medications given to the patient) relies on the RxNorm standard to provide code values for medications used in the pre-hospital setting. RxNorm is a standardized naming system for ALL drugs and drug delivery devices. A shortcoming to this approach is that national standards, such as RxNorm and ICD-10, contain literally thousands of codes that don’t apply to the pre-hospital setting.
In an effort to help ease the work of users of those national standards, the National EMS Information System’s Technical Assistance Center (NEMSIS TAC) has prepared “suggested lists” of values appropriate for use in the pre-hospital setting for each national standard as a reference to find the right code for your patient.
You are not limited to using the codes on these lists; they are simply a tool we are providing for entering EMSIRS data. The lists are not inclusive and may not have a medication or procedure your agency uses, but all of the codes are in EMSIRS already. These lists may be used to help you narrow your choices before entering data into EMSIRS.
Suggested Lists (click to download)
If you have questions about the code sets or suggested lists, please email the EMS Office of Research and Analysis.
