Comments on: Study Tries to Fine-Tune Medical Dispatching http://www.911dispatch.com/2010/08/02/study-tries-to-fine-tune-medical-dispatching/ news and information about public safety communications since 1982 Fri, 23 Jan 2015 04:19:31 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1 By: Andre Jones http://www.911dispatch.com/2010/08/02/study-tries-to-fine-tune-medical-dispatching/comment-page-1/#comment-888 Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:01:27 +0000 http://www.911dispatch.com/?p=3589#comment-888 This is very interesting. The agency I work with is doing a similar study, performing increased QA/QI audits on incidents that come in NOT as a cardiac arrest, but are in fact, a cardiac arrest upon the arrival of a medical responder. These include reports of persons unconscious or having seizures. As per the protocols, a person unconscious with unverifiable breathing (2nd party) as well as those having seizures where breathing cannot be verified when the seizure is over, are to be considered to be in cardiac arrest until proven otherwise. Some EMDs, erring on the side of doubt, send them out… the 2nd part is not to be in doubt so much. Even when a caller states they are calling about someone who “can’t breathe,” in case entry after confirming the patient is unconscious, there is an opportunity to use diagnostic tools to confirm the effectiveness of breathing. If nothing else, stay on the line with the caller, follow the correct links in the protocols and ensure the airway is maintained through pre-arrival instructions. EMDs should not be hanging up on callers when the patient they are dealing with is unconscious. As well, throughout the call process, there are opportunities to reconfigure responses as appropriate (and per local protocol). EMDs also should not be diagnosing anything; so it would add to the struggle to add more determinants to decipher. What is needed, after such a study, is continuing dispatch education of EMD matters and a reiteration of standards.

]]> By: JKFLA http://www.911dispatch.com/2010/08/02/study-tries-to-fine-tune-medical-dispatching/comment-page-1/#comment-887 Tue, 03 Aug 2010 14:44:54 +0000 http://www.911dispatch.com/?p=3589#comment-887 While the study likely does accurately reflect true life, our dispatchers can only make decisions based on what is being told to them by the callers. We do not ask them to diagnose, we ask them to assess the symptoms as reported by the caller and make a response decision based on that information. The study needs to take into consideration that our dispatchers are not on the scene, they are remote to the incident.

You could take the same study for emergency rooms and see that in most cases when a person calls an emergency room to see what they should do, they are advised to just go to said emergency room for help. No other assistance is provided over the phone.

MPDS systems are in place to provide a standard for all to follow, it will give a caller assurance that no matter where they may call 911 from. If anyone is expecting a more accurate diagnosis based on information gathered from a very short phone call, they we need to change our system and have Doctors answering the calls, and even then they would not be able to make an accurate diagnosis more than 30% of the time.

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