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level of consciousness

Caller's Ability to Understand "Responding Normally" vs. "Completely Alert" Key Question in a Brazilian Portuguese Version of an Emergency Medical Dispatch Protocol

Valeria De Cassia Pereira, RN, EMD-QI, Sara Scott, Maristela Uta Nakano, MD, MBA, Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Christopher Olola, PhD, Isabel Gardett, PhD, Srilakshmi Sangaraju, MS, Irena Weight, Daniel Ashwood, PhD, Edward Trefts, MFA, Brett Patterson, Jeff J. Clawson, MD

Aug 13, 2019|AEDR 2019 Vol. 7 Issue 2|Original Research

Alertness is important to assess during many medical emergencies; however, assessing alertness proves difficult in a non-visual emergency dispatch environment. Little is understood about how to best gather an accurate report of patient alertness during an interaction between callers and Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs). The primary objective of the study was to compare two versions of a Key Question (KQ) intended to gain an accurate report of alertness, to determine whether either demonstrates a higher degree of caller...

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Caller’s Ability to Understand “Responding Normally” vs. “Completely Alert” Key Question in a North American English version of an Emergency Medical Dispatch Protocol

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Christopher Olola, PhD, Chris Davis, EMD-I, Bryon Schultz, BA, Charles Gipson, MA, Jeff J. Clawson, MD

Apr 04, 2022|AEDR 2022 Vol. 10 Issue 1|Original Research

The difficulty of evaluating mental status, particularly alertness, is more pronounced in the medical dispatch context, where the Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) must work through the eyes and ears of the caller, who is most likely a layperson. Determining true non-alertness and the level of its effects on outcome needs to be solved to perfect the interrogation and response-coding processes at dispatch.

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