Purpose of the study
Smartphone-based alerting of community first responders (CFR) to out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is associated with better neurological outcome and a higher probability of survival to hospital discharge1. Hence, ERC guidelines recommend implementation of CFR schemes2. In Vorpommern-Greifswald (northeast Germany) such a system (“Land|Retter”-App) was established in 2017. When a OHCA is reported to ambulance control the dispatch software suggests CFR activation in addition to an ambulance. It is at the discretion of the dispatchers to deselect the CFR option if there are safety concerns, qualified personnel is already on site or other unspecified reasons. Thus, dispatchers directly impact on the frequency of deployment of CRFs. It is therefore essential to understand the attitude of dispatchers towards usability and functionality of the “Land|Retter” system.
Materials and methods
A questionnaire (18 closed, 2 open questions) was distributed to all 20 dispatchers of the district emergency dispatch centre one year after implementation the CFR scheme. Ethical approval was obtained, informed consent was given by all participants. The survey was conducted anonymously and analysed using SPSS v25.
Results
The response rate of the survey was 100% (20/20). All dispatchers perceived dispatch of CFR as no (n=10; 50%) or minor (n=10; 50%) additional burden. 17 dispatchers (85%) stated that the “Land|Retter”-application runs “without” or “with minor” technical problems. 15 dispatchers (75%) stated that during the last year of operating with the scheme their opinion on the functionality did not change. Only 5 dispatchers (25%) regard the system as medically useful; 8 (40%) found the system to be moderately medically useful.
Conclusions
Dispatchers rate the system as technically sound and not increasing their routine workload significantly. However, their understanding of the beneficial effect on outcome of smartphone-app based community-response has to be addressed.
(1): 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2016.06.006
(2): 10.1016/j.resuscitation.2021.02.008

Emergency medical dispatcher perceive alerting community first responders to out-of-hospital cardiac arrests as no or minor additional burden

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