Impact of medical training on ambulance dispatching

This study was designed to assess the ability of trained individuals to screen calls for emergency medical services to allow for safer or more appropriate responses. The degree of urgency of calls, as judged by dispatchers and a panel of physicians, was compared to estimates of the severity of the patient's illness or injury. Physicians were more likely to designate calls as emergencies than were dispatchers. Neither physicians nor dispatchers were able to discriminate between the severely ill or injured and those without severe problems. The emergency medical technicians were better able to assess severity and degree of urgency than were physicians or dispatchers. A tentative conclusion is that rapid response by an emergency medical services system will be based upon the caller's description of the situation rather than medical assessment of patient condition.