If you’re reading this, you probably already believe in the importance of data and evidence in decision making. You are probably already interested in learning more about how dispatch operates “behind the scenes”—how dispatching standards originate and evolve. You may also be hoping to be able to apply data, research, and standards to your own dispatch operations. In all of these respects, emergency dispatching has come a long way in the past 35 years.
Although it makes up only about 1-2% of all emergency calls for help, sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) remains one of the most deadly—and one of the most hotly debated—topics in emergency services. Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs) can play a critical role in improving survival rates for victims of SCA. In order to provide the most timely, effective care, EMDs must first identify that an SCA is occurring, then move quickly to provide instructions for bystander CPR. To support the achievement of these twin goals, the American Heart Association (AHA) has recently released proposed standards for...
Some have argued that there is no need for a dispatcher stroke evaluation because emergency medical services (EMS) responders can perform a more detailed, in-person stroke evaluation in the field. In fact, little or no research exists to determine whether dispatch stroke evaluations are actually redundant when compared with EMS field responder assessments. The purpose of this study is to determine whether some strokes identified by emergency medical dispatchers (EMDs) are not identified by field paramedics. The descriptive study utilized data from...
We sought to study a recently implemented prehospital emergency care system and its effects on the treatment level and prognosis of stroke patients. Prior to the introduction of the new system, no dispatch triage or prehospital care was available, and most patients accessed emergency care directly, without calling an emergency number. From April 2014 to March 2015, at our associate hospital's emergency department, 325 first-time acute stroke patients were admitted to the emergency department. This cohort was divided according to hospital admission method...
Have you ever wondered how Netflix knows what movies to recommend for you—or realized that if it is suggesting kids' movies, that means someone else in the house must have been using your account? It turns out that this sort of technology, which relies on what is called "big data," is also useful for calltaking and emergency response. Consider the size of the data that we collectively work with. Based on some available information, if there were global coverage of emergency numbers, there would be approximately seven billion emergency calls (911, 999, 998, 997, 112, 111, 102, etc.) per year...
What led you to the decision to make system-wide improvements to try to improve Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest (OHCA) survival in Salt Lake City? OHCA is one of the leading causes of untimely death in North America, with approximately 400,000 OHCAs per year. This is one disease where EMS care makes a big difference in outcomes. Other EMS systems had shown that they could drive an improvement in outcomes. I thought we could emulate what others have done to optimize outcomes for OHCA victims. But when I became the medical director of the Salt Lake...
