Moving from paper patient report forms to an electronic patient care record changes how your crews work at the patient's side. These are the questions worth putting to any supplier, including us. After each one we say how SnapMedic ePCR answers it today, including where the answer is "not included".
What happens with no signal?
Crews at events, rural jobs and inside buildings lose connection. Ask what a clinician can do offline and what waits for signal.
With SnapMedic ePCR, a clinician can start a record and record details offline. Changes queue on the device and synchronise when connectivity returns. Shared editing and seeing a colleague's changes depend on connectivity.
Can two crew members work on one record?
If a second clinician has to start a second form, the record fragments. Ask how colleagues join the same patient record and how the system shows who wrote what.
In SnapMedic ePCR a colleague joins by the exact incident or CAD reference, or the record ID. They see the incident context first and the clinical detail only after they confirm. Each field keeps its author and time, and when two people edit the same field the superseded values are kept.
Who locks the record, and what stays editable afterwards?
Ask whether a record can be locked with fields missing, and what a clinician can do once it is locked.
In SnapMedic ePCR a clinician sees the missing required fields before locking and records a written reason to finish with gaps. After locking, the original stays as it was; clinicians with the right permission add signed updates that show who added what.
Can we shape the forms and formulary?
Ask who changes forms, how versions are controlled and whether medicines come from your own formulary.
SnapMedic ePCR uses versioned forms and organisation-published formulary entries, set up with your service. Form publication is a supported configuration process, not a drag-and-drop builder.
Does it make clinical decisions?
Ask whether the system calculates doses or suggests treatment, and where responsibility sits.
SnapMedic ePCR records the clinician's account of care. It has no medicine-dose calculator or dosing decision support. Medicines are recorded against your formulary with quantity, unit and route.
How does handover reach the receiving team?
Ask what travels with the patient and what the receiving hospital sees.
SnapMedic ePCR records a structured ATMIST handover with crew and receiving signatures on the record. How completed records reach your receiving teams is agreed and configured during rollout.
What does it connect to?
Ask about CAD, national services and sign-in.
Version one of SnapMedic ePCR records a CAD or job reference but has no live dispatch integration. NHS national lookups such as CIS2 are not included, and neither is organisation single sign-on. Sign-in uses email codes and an authenticator.
Who owns the data, and where is it kept?
Ask who owns the records, who at the supplier can read them, and how long they are kept.
Patient records belong to your organisation. Enterprise clinical data is stored server-side and is readable by the service for authorised synchronisation, audit and support. Organisation isolation, named permissions, encryption and audit logging govern access. Hosting and retention are agreed with your service.
What security assurance does the supplier hold?
Ask for evidence you can check. SnapMedic Ltd is Cyber Essentials certified, covering the whole organisation, and the certificate can be checked on the public registry.
How is it priced and when does billing start?
SnapMedic ePCR is an add-on inside SnapMedic Enterprise, priced by written quote for your recording clinicians, hosting and support. Billing begins at the agreed live-service date.
If you are weighing up a move to electronic records, tell us about your service and bring your current form and formulary. For event work, see our guide for event medical teams.
