Over the years, there has been a downward trend in the prevalence of deaths from heart disease, attributed to improved healthcare access, advancements in sanitation, and a reduction in smoking (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 1999). However, recent data indicate a concerning reversal in this trend, with an increase in heart disease-related deaths (Martin et al., 2024).
While sleep hygiene is one piece of the much larger puzzle of overall wellness, it is crucial to understand its importance. There are steps that can be taken, both by the individual dispatcher and the center as a whole, that can help improve the sleep, and overall wellness.
The predictive value between the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS) Stroke Diagnostic Tool (SDxT) and Paramedic-Initiated Stroke Activation (PISA) using the outcome of hospital diagnosis of stroke.
Emergency dispatchers face high levels of stress, yet little research exists on support mechanisms for their well-being. This study focuses on the utilization and perceived efficacy of peer support programs among this critical workforce.
The following case is a medical emergency call handled by a large metropolitan emergency medical service (EMS) agency. This agency handles over 12,000 emergency and non-emergency ambulance calls per month in an area over 270 square miles, with a population of around 500,000.The emergency medical dispatcher (EMD) used the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS®) version 13.3 (NAE) to handle this call.
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
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.
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.
During a given incident, dispatchers are under high stress balancing the workload of listening, understanding, recording, and responding to an unfolding event. These personnel work in a high stakes environment, where seconds can mean life and death. They are called upon to be the voice of reason and calm during traumatic events, and must follow policy and procedures in effectively communicating event information to a number of different user groups. The goal of this work was to demonstrate how a predictive workload equation can be used to evaluate cognitive workload of a dispatcher during a representati
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.
