Background
Since 2011 dispatch of the emergency pre hospital resources has been
performed by health care providers. The dispatch of the prehospital
resources takes place using a criteria based nationwide dispatch system,
The Danish Medical Aid Index. This is a tool that classifies the patients into
37 different symptom groups system to determine the level of urgency
required.
Following prehospital contact with the Emergency Medical System, an
electronic medical record is created. This record includes variables such as type of response and response time, vital parameters, treatment, etc.
Furthermore, the electronic medical record system enables the emergency medical technician (EMT) to provide feedback to the dispatcher by reporting whether the condition reported by the dispatcher matches the findings at the scene.
Purpose
In order to enable future benchmarking between different emergency
medical dispatch centres in the Danish Health Regions, this study aims to
investigate whether there is congruence between the perceived severity of the incident as judged by the emergency medical dispatcher and the actual condition of the patient as judged by EMT upon first contact with the patient.
Methods
In a retrospective analysis of three months October 2018 December
2018 data were recorded as follows:
-Assignment within each symptom group in The Danish Medical Aid
Index
-The feedback from the prehospital unit regarding accuracy of
dispatcher report.
Results
- 47 206 missions were total registered in South Denmark
in the period from October to December 2018. Missing
data in 7511 missions (15,9%).
- 39 695 missions were included to the study.
- In total 2132 missions were stated by the EMT to be in a
different condition, when assessed at the scene compared
to the criteria based dispatcher record (5,3%).
- The largest deviations (12,4%) were found in the diagnosis
group ”Sick child”.
Conclusion
A high congruence between the perceived severity of the incident judged by the dispatcher and the actual clinical assessment, made by the EMT, could be documented. The pronounced deviation in the diagnosis group ”Sick child” is hypothesised to be due to overtriage.
Future investigations should include comparison between data from other Danish.

6 - Accuracy of judgment of urgency as perceived by Emergency Medical Dispatch Centres in Denmark- a quality assurance study-