Reducing time in emergency medical service by improving information exchange among information systems

Abstract

There are many organized units involved to perform an emergency rescue mission: dispatch center, mobile rescue units and emergency departments (ED) in hospitals. Communication among them is often not fully automated, and then personnel need to cope with unnecessary work. That of course takes time in cases of urgent interventions, while time is one of the most important factors for patient survival. There are several processes in which better performance could be established. Improvement can be made by reducing communication obstacles between actors in processes and among three different information systems involved: hospital information system (HIS) in emergency department, computer aided dispatch (CAD) and records management system (RMS) used by mobile units. Verbal information exchange unreliability, paper sharing problems and retyping of data from system to system can be removed in many processes: hospital staff e-ordering from HIS, call taker to dispatcher in dispatch center, dispatcher to mobile unit and mobile unit to emergency department in hospital. With the establishment of paths among these three information systems (HIS, CAD and RMS) priceless saved minutes can be used in the battle for patient’s life. Improvements can also be achieved in the cost-effectiveness. Many data exchanged from involved information systems and gathered to a central database can be very useful for the needs of accountancy and EMS operation improvement management and EMS quality assurance management.