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. 2004 Jan;21(1):115–118. doi: 10.1136/emj.2003.006940

Does the use of the Advanced Medical Priority Dispatch System affect cardiac arrest detection?

A Heward 1, M Damiani 1, C Hartley-Sharpe 1
PMCID: PMC1756371  PMID: 14734398

Abstract

Methods: A two stage study was undertaken. The first, compared cases coded as "cardiac arrest" and found by the responding ambulance to be in cardiac arrest before the implementation of AMPDS. This was compared with cases triaged as "cardiac arrest" and found to be in cardiac arrest across three years after AMPDS implementation. The second stage compared AMPDS compliance, over a 32 month period against the percentage of cardiac arrest calls that were found to be cardiac arrest upon the ambulance arrival. The correlation coefficient was calculated and analysed for statistical significance.

Findings: AMPDS resulted in a 200% rise in the number of patients accurately identified as suffering from cardiac arrest. A relation was identified between identification and AMPDS compliance (r2 = 0.65, p = 0.001).

Discussion: The implementation of AMPDS increased accurate identification of patients in cardiac arrest. Additionally, the relation between factors identified suggests compliance with protocol is an important factor in the accurate recognition of patient conditions.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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