Emergency medical services require the accuracy of priority dispatching to optimize the match between patients' medical needs, prehospital resources, and maintaining patient safety. When ambulances are traveling with Lights/Sirens rather than with other vehicles' flow and speed on the road, they place themselves and the public at a higher risk.
Police officers, fire fighters, and emergency medical personnel are recognized for their
hard work as on-scene responders, however the role of emergency dispatch is easily
overlooked. The stressors that are seen in emergency responder work are also experienced
by emergency dispatchers. While they are not experiencing these emergencies directly, this
presents unique struggles for them.
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
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.
Studies have cited dispatcher claims of
significant emotional, mental, and
physical stress as a result of their work,
however, there is very little literature that
ranks in order of prevalence or severity
the factors contributing to overall stress
specific to emergency dispatchers. The
aim of this study is to collect data that
will complement other research findings
in this field to inform the development of
new programs designed to address
specific factors contributing to dispatch
stress and build better psychological
health among this group.
In emergency dispatching, providers often
arrive and find a situation completely different
from the EMD Coding. Guilford County
Emergency Services recently added BLS units
to our fleet and wanted to match determinant
codes to the correct responses to allow the
ALS level providers to be available for higher
priority calls. We looked at the on-scene
primary impression recorded by the provider as
well as the level of service.
There are many recent articles published
in scientific literature on the topic of
work-related stress. However, these
studies focus on the effects of stress
on the workers and not on the impact
that stress could have on their work
performancemore specifically on the
calltaker’s (emergency dispatcher (ED))
performance and consequently on the
whole Emergency Medical Service (EMS).
The objectives of this study were to
describe the barriers to achieving. ACE
and to identify characteristics that
indicate success with respect to achieving
and maintaining ACE status.
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?”
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.
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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