On January 19, 2020, relaxing in his Snohomish County living room and watching the early news reports about Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China—the city he'd just returned from—the patient became concerned. He had not been feeling well and decided to go to his primary care physician. Shortly after arriving at the physician's office, his doctor contacted the Health District Officer. They drew a blood sample and overnighted it to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lab in Atlanta. The patient went home to...
Director Tyrell Morris, Orleans Parish Communication District, discusses the implementation of Protocol 36: Pandemic, Epidemic, and Outbreak (Surveillance and Triage), the role of video triage in COVID-19 calls, and New Orleans's self-quarantine registry...
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...
Acute stroke is one of the five time-dependent conditions (first hour quintet, FHQ) that emergency medical services (EMS) must manage better and faster; early identification and treatment are critical to reduce both immediate damage and long-term disability. For Emergency Medical Communication Centers, the rapid and accurate identification of stroke patients is the challenge to be won in the coming years. The main objective of this study is to evaluate the ability of Emergency Medical Dispatchers (EMDs) and rescuers to rapidly and...
Isabel talks with Jamie Foster, a trainer for the South Western Ambulance Service in the U.K. They discuss what "transgender" means, which medical protocols are impacted by the caller's gender, and how the EMD can balance getting the right information with giving good customer service...
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...
Opioid overdoses have reached crisis proportions. One response has been to increase the availability of naloxone HCl (commonly referred to by the generic name naloxone), which reverses the effects of opioid overdose. The Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS®) includes instructions by which the Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) can prompt the caller to find and use naloxone on overdose victims. However, these instructions are only provided on dispatch Chief Complaint (CC) Protocols on which overdoses are expected to be handled...
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. This study attempts to provide insight on one remote SA situation by reporting on a simulation study in which cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) instructions were provided over...
Isabel talks with Dr. Mike Barnum, an emergency medicine physician in Las Vegas. They discuss how evidence informs practice, the different types of evidence, and how to integrate sound data into your center...
Isabel talks with Dr. Mike McEvoy, EMS Coordinator for Saratoga County. They discuss common myths about bystander and responder potential for opioid exposure, the symptoms of an opioid overdose, and how to keep callers safe...
