[What leads to urgent house calls at an emergency medical service?]

Which are the signs the emergency service uses most to initiate an urgent home visit? What degree of diagnostic certainty can be attained at the telephone? These questions were answered by a study of the Vienna emergency doctor's service, a General Practitioner deputizing service operating during all the nights and on weekend days. The 3 diagnostic items leading to an urgent visit most frequently after a phone call were angina, bronchial asthma and dyspnoea. The doctor at the telephone decides in favour of an urgent visit, if a symptom relates to a prevalently dangerous group of diseases; he follows these signs urgently when the time of the day frequently relates to dangerous diseases containing such a symptom. The decision to do an urgent house call is more often made up in terms of diagnoses than by mere symptoms.