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.
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.
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.
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?”
Lavonne C. Hall, president and CEO, and Mark Corum, director of media services, discuss the history of Hall Ambulance Service. Hall Ambulance is based in Bakersfield, California, and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. They talk about how it started and the milestones it’s achieved along the way.
Research on motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) is robust, though most focuses on prevention and treatment. Emergency medical experts now recognize telecommunications' vital role in the chain of survival; however, MVA research on telecommunicator impact on the MVA is limited. This study seeks to address that gap in research, examining the relationship between Emergency Medical Dispatch codes and on-scene findings. The objective of the study was to characterize all cases (based on determinant codes) triaged using the Medical Priority...
