Experiences of adding nurses to increase medical competence at an emergency medical dispatch centre

Prehospital care begins when the call is placed to the emergency medical dispatch (EMD) centre and ends when the patient is cared for at the emergency department. The highly technical and specialized character demands advanced medical competence. Communication problems, serious and unpredictable situations can often occur during the emergency calls. A two-year intervention study involved the addition of registered nurses to an EMD-centre team to increase medical competence.

To describe registered nurses' and emergency-operators' experiences of working together at an EMD-centre after adding registered nurses to increase medical competence.

Qualitative content analysis was used to analyse the text from interviews with four registered nurses and 15 emergency-operators involved in the intervention.

Initial frustration and scepticism changed to more positive experiences that resulted in improved cooperation and service. The registered nurses had difficulties dealing with the more urgently acute calls, while the emergency-operators had difficulties with the more complicated, somewhat diffuse cases. The two professions complemented each other.

Combining the registered nurses' and emergency-operators' knowledge and experience at an EMD-centre can perhaps improve the prehospital care for those requiring emergency medical care.