A Comparative Study of the Start Time Between Using Radio and Bell Signals in Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Activation

Abstract

Background and Objective  :  The process of emergency medical services (EMS) contains from received call, dispatch, being enroute and arrival to patients. The  Emergency  Medical Institute of Thailand  recommend to use the radio signal to dispatch the members to ambulance, many team members can’t interpret it so that delay time to being enroute. Therefore, this study aims to compare their start time between  radio signals and bell signals.      

Methods : This study was intervention study at Emergency medical service system, Faculty of  Medicine, Khon Kaen University during 20^th September 2011 – 20^th February 2012. The studied subjects were divided into two groups according to the operation numbers; the even number use radio signal and odd number use bell signal to dispatch.

Results : There were 1,044 cases, the mean of start time in the bell group was 45.8+17.9 sec and of the  radio signal group was 105.9+38.1.

Conclusion  :  The start time of the bell signal group was shorter than the radio signal in EMS activation