Mobile Medical Teams are Often Over-Qualified.

Area of Science:

• Emergency Medicine
• Prehospital Care
• Healthcare Resource Management

Background:

• Emergency department (ED) staff in Belgium often participate in both ED patient care and prehospital interventions via Mobile Medical Teams (MMTs) or Paramedic Intervention Teams (PITs).
• Concerns exist regarding MMTs being over-qualified for certain prehospital calls and their absence impacting ED staffing levels.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the perceived and actual qualifications of MMTs for prehospital interventions in two Belgian regions.
• To compare findings between two-tiered (2T) and three-tiered (3T) Emergency Medical Services (EMS) regions.

Main Methods:

• Physicians and nurses completed registration forms before and after MMT interventions.
• Forms collected data on MMT composition, perceived need, subjective appreciation post-intervention, and therapeutic interventions performed.
• Data from 2T and 3T regions were analyzed to assess intervention appropriateness.

Main Results:

• MMTs were deemed unnecessary pre-intervention in 37.7% of cases, increasing to 65.7% post-intervention.
• Based on therapeutic interventions, MMTs were over-qualified in 85.6% of cases.
• Post-intervention, 87.6% of physicians and nurses confirmed the MMT was over-qualified for the call.

Conclusions:

• A significant majority of MMT interventions in Belgium involve over-qualified personnel.
• Healthcare professionals can often predict MMT over-qualification before departing the ED.
• Reducing interventions by over-qualified MMTs presents opportunities to enhance ED human resource efficacy.