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Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

911 Caller-Described Heart Attack Symptoms

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Christopher Olola, PhD, Brett Patterson, Chris Davis, EMD-I, Joleen Quigg, Matthew Miko, JD, Richard Lindfors, NRP EMD-I, Jayme Tidwell, Kevin Pagenkop, ED-Q, John Lofgren, ED-Q, Jaci Fox, ENP, Jeff Clawson, MD

Apr 20, 2022|Research Posters

Research has showed that heart attacks present clinically with varying symptoms; and those symptoms are not always described by patients as chest pain or chest discomfort. Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs) using the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS™) are trained to select the Chest Pain/Chest Discomfort Protocol for non-chest pain heart attack symptoms or classic heart attack complaint of chest pain/chest discomfort. Nevertheless, it is still unknown how often callers report heart attack symptoms other than chest pain/chest discomfort, including what specific words/phrases they use to describe

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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, Jean Early, BS, Jeff Clawson, MD

Apr 20, 2022|Research Posters

The difficulty of evaluating the 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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Welcome Message from the Editor-In-Chief

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Apr 04, 2022|AEDR 2022 Vol. 10 Issue 1|Editor's Message

2022 is beginning to shape up as a year of opportunity for us in the public safety and public health professions. As COVID-19 transforms from a pandemic to an endemic disease, emergency services should get a much-needed moment to reset and recharge. Indeed, we can use this well-deserved breather to focus on areas needing improvement in our field. One such area is how we manage responses to 911 medical calls for help. For many years, researchers and analysts have documented the need to reduce lights and siren response to medical calls for emergency assistance, warning of an overreliance on these ‘hot’ re

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Welcome Message from the Editor-in-Chief

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Dec 22, 2021|AEDR 2021 Vol. 9 Issue 3|Editor's Message

This issue of AEDR contains two very intriguing studies that, on the surface, seem completely unconnected. Yet many important issues in emergency dispatch are interdependent when one chooses to look a little closer. One study, conducted with the participation of focus groups representing some of Utah’s diverse communities, tells us how members of those communities make their decisions to call 911, why they may not call even when true emergencies present to them, and what factors most influence their decision-making to call or not to call, including a finding that we may not always be delivering the righ

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Welcome Message from the Editor-in-Chief

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI

Sep 07, 2021|AEDR 2021 Vol. 9 Issue 2|Editor's Message

What’s next for the First, First Responder? Since that term was first coined decades ago by Dr. Jeff Clawson in the nascent years of emergency medical dispatch development, much has changed. One of the biggest changes is the expanded role of the emergency telecommunicator in general—not simply the role of the emergency medical dispatcher (EMD), who was the subject of the earliest efforts to professionalize emergency telecommunicators with formal training and continuing education...

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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION NURSES’ ABILITY TO CORRECTLY SELECT ABDOMINAL PAIN AS THE APPROPRIATE PROTOCOL IN TELEPHONIC NURSE TRIAGE SYSTEM

Mark Conrad Fivaz, MD, Jeff J. Clawson, MD, Christopher Olola, PhD, Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Matt Zavadsky, MS, Gigi Marshall, MSN, Elaine Messerli, BSN, RN

Aug 04, 2021|Research Posters

The primary objective of this study was to determine the ability of an Emergency Communication Nurse (ECN) to appropriately identify the Abdominal Pain Chief Complaint Protocol to use to triage patients in low-acuity cases. The secondary objectives were to establish the most frequently used primary triage code (Medical Priority Dispatch System™ (MPDS®) Determinant Codes), triggering the use of the Abdominal Pain Chief Complaint Protocol in the Emergency Communication Nurse System™ (ECNS™), as well as the percentage of these calls resulting in a Recommended Care Level (RCL) of “emergency a

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ABILITY OF LAYPERSON CALLERS TO APPLY A TOURNIQUET FOLLOWING PROTOCOL-BASED INSTRUCTIONS FROM AN EMERGENCY MEDICAL DISPATCHER

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Christopher Olola, PhD, Isabel Gardett, PhD, Daniel Ashwood, PhD, Meghan Broadbent, MS, Srilakshmi Sangaraju, MS, Paul Stiegler, MD, Mark Conrad Fivaz, MD, Jeff J. Clawson, MD

Aug 04, 2021|Research Posters

The overall objective of the study was to determine whether layperson callers can effectively stop simulated bleeding using an improvised or a commercial tourniquet, when provided with scripted instructions via phone from a trained protocol-aided EMD.

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Caller’s Ability to Understand “Responding Normally” vs. “Completely Alert” Key Question

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 04, 2021|Research Posters

Anecdotally, numerous MPDS® (Priority Dispatch Corp., Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)-user agencies in the USA, Canada, UK, and Brazil have reported that the emergency caller has difficulty understanding the key question (KQ) “Is s/he completely alert?”

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Situational Awareness in Emergency Medical Dispatch

Isabel Gardett, PhD, Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Meghan Broadbent, MS, Christopher Olola, PhD, Madison Bramwell, MEd

Aug 04, 2021|Research Posters

Situational awareness (SA, also called situation awareness) is the ability to take in relevant information about an event in order to understand it and take effective action. Maintaining effective SA as an emergency medical dispatcher (EMD) may be more difficult than in other, similarly complex roles because of the remote nature of an emergency call for help.

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IS EMD LOW-ACUITY CODE SELECTION INFLUENCED BY A SOFTWARE MODIFICATION?

Greg Scott, MBA, EMD-QI, Christopher Olola, PhD, Isabel Gardett, PhD, Meghan Broadbent, MS, Bryon Schultz, BA, Lisa Burnette, Jeff J. Clawson, MD, Srilakshmi Sangaraju, MS

Aug 04, 2021|Research Posters

Sick Person (Specific Diagnosis) is one of the most commonly used Chief Complaint Protocols in the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS). This protocol is often used when a caller does not report any specific or high-priority symptoms. Of particular concern is the 26-ALPHA-1 determinant code, which refers to a person with “No priority symptoms” and none of the specific symptoms listed on the ALPHA-code drop-down list (Fig. 1).

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