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Abstract
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Ambulance to hospital radio communications systems are becoming increasingly part of the emergency health care delivery system. Their aim is to forewarn the hospital emergency department of patient arrival and to make possible medical input whilst the patient is being transported. An evaluation of one such system is reported.
Reliability of the communications equipment was found to improve to a high level after an initial "shake down" period, both in terms of component and human reliabilty. Thus, the major evaluation effort was at the human/system interface. Evaluation methods included testing knowledge of use of radio operators, recordi and analysis of radio messages and detailed observation of the time history of emergency department operations by physician-observers.
Observation of almost 400 emergency ambulance runs showed that the emergency departments were usually well prepared, although this was not always perceived by the ambulance staff. One third of all radio calls from ambulance to hospital were answered by non-medical staff. On 70% of all calls the ambulance staff was judged to have provided adequate information on the patient.
The knowledge of use test showed that training programs need revision. There were significant differences between (a) types of ambulance companies (Hospital Based, Commercial, Volunteer, etc.), (b) frequency of use levels of the radio, and (c) age levels of ambulance personnel. More frequent radio users and younger personnel scored more highly.
Recommendations for changes included eliminating non-emergency use of the radio, removing particular areas of local poor reception, institution of planned check-out and back-up procedures for radio equipment and changes in the radio layout within vehicles and hospitals.
Language: en |