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Does the Norwegian emergency medical dispatch classification as non-urgent predict no need for pre-hospital medical treatment? An observational study

Overview of attention for article published in Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, May 2016
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Title
Does the Norwegian emergency medical dispatch classification as non-urgent predict no need for pre-hospital medical treatment? An observational study
Published in
Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, May 2016
DOI 10.1186/s13049-016-0258-8
Pubmed ID
Authors

Eystein Grusd, Jo Kramer-Johansen

Abstract

The number of ambulance call-outs in Norway is increasing owing to societal changes and increased demand from the public. Together with improved but more expensive education of ambulance staff, this leads to increased costs and staffing shortages. We wanted to study whether the current dispatch triage tools could reliably identify patients who only required transport, and not pre-hospital medical care. This could allow selection of such patients for designated transport units, freeing up highly trained ambulance staff to attend patients in greater need. A cross-sectional observational study was used, drawing on all electronic and paper records in our ambulance service from four random days in 2012. The patients were classified into acuity groups, based on Emergency Medical Dispatch codes, and pre-hospital interventions were extracted from the Patient Report Forms. Of the 1489 ambulance call-outs included in this study, 82 PRFs (5 %) were missing. A highly significant association was found between acuity group and recorded pre-hospital intervention (p ≤ 0.001). We found no correlation between gender, distance to hospital, age and pre-hospital interventions. Ambulances staffed by paramedics performed more interventions (234/917, 26 %) than those with emergency medical technicians (42/282, 15 %). The strongest predictor for needing pre-hospital interventions was found to be the emergency medical dispatch acuity descriptor. This study has demonstrated that the Norwegian dispatch system is able to correctly identify patients who do not need pre-hospital interventions. Patients with a low acuity code had a very low level of pre-hospital interventions. Evaluation of adherence to protocol in the Emergency Medical Dispatch is not possible due to the inherent need for medical experience in the triage process. This study validates the Norwegian dispatch tool (Norwegian index) as a predictor of patients who do not need pre-hospital interventions.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 71 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United Kingdom 1 1%
Mexico 1 1%
Denmark 1 1%
Unknown 68 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 9 13%
Researcher 7 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 6 8%
Student > Bachelor 6 8%
Professor 4 6%
Other 12 17%
Unknown 27 38%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 20 28%
Nursing and Health Professions 19 27%
Computer Science 1 1%
Psychology 1 1%
Sports and Recreations 1 1%
Other 3 4%
Unknown 26 37%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 28 July 2016.
All research outputs
#12,955,227
of 22,869,263 outputs
Outputs from Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine
#751
of 1,259 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#137,435
of 298,725 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine
#27
of 49 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 22,869,263 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 42nd percentile – i.e., 42% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 1,259 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 10.2. This one is in the 38th percentile – i.e., 38% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 298,725 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 53% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 49 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 40th percentile – i.e., 40% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.