Researchers: Yuval Bitan¹, Zilla Sinuany-Stern¹, Eli Jaffe²

Background: Early identification of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) has proven to increase survival rates. Toward this goal, emergency medical dispatchers commonly use one of two types of emergency medical dispatcher systems, each with a unique out-of-hospital cardiac arrest protocol. The criteria-based dispatch (CBD) protocol is a set of guidelines and prompts intended for dispatchers with clinical background and experience, while the medical priority dispatch (MPD) is a scripted caller interrogation protocol intended for non-clinician dispatchers.

Objectives: Comparing CBD and MPD OHCA protocols in terms of the probability of OHCA identification and the duration of the identification process.

Method: We conducted an experiment that simulates an emergency phone call by a bystander. Two groups participated in the experiment:
1. EMT (emergency medical technicians) during paramedic vocational training, in the role of CBD dispatchers;
2. Students without formal clinical background, in the role of either MPD dispatchers or bystanders.
Dispatchers were asked to identify whether the patient was having a cardiac arrest or another clinical condition.

Findings: The duration of the OHCA identification process was significantly shorter for MPD users. The OHCA identification probability was slightly higher for the CBD users, but this difference was not statistically significant.

Conclusions: The shorter identification process for the MPD protocol and the high identification probability for both protocols suggests that optimization can be done.

Recommendations: A combination of the two protocols may help increase the probability of OHCA identification and shorten the OHCA identification process.

Research end date: 12/2018