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Prehospital Life-Support Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 June 2012

Martin D. Keller
Affiliation:
From the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ohio State University, Columbus OH 43210, USA.
Thomas N. Chirikas
Affiliation:
From the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ohio State University, Columbus OH 43210, USA.
Richard R. Lanese
Affiliation:
From the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ohio State University, Columbus OH 43210, USA.
Richard P. Lewis
Affiliation:
From the Department of Preventive Medicine, Ohio State University, Columbus OH 43210, USA.

Extract

In an emergency medical services (EMS) system, a certain number of events come to the attention of the pre-hospital subsystem that are subsequently characterized as having required “life-supportive” care. Such cases represent an undetermined portion of the persons, in the population served, who actually require such care. Generally, the life-support units that are available in a community are dispatched on the basis of information received at a medical emergency dispatching center. Very often, the information obtained from the caller is too ambiguous for a clear decision and, inevitably, there is a significant portion of “false-positive” or inappropriate runs. In systems in which little or no attempt is made to screen calls, the dispatching procedure inevitably becomes a “first come, first served” phenomenon and the inappropriateness of the responses is bound to be even greater.

Type
Part I: Research-Education-Organization
Copyright
Copyright © World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine 1985

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