EMD - experiment on CCH decisions
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Emergency Medical Dispatch - An experiment on Critical Care Hub decisions
IRAS ID
346287
Contact name
Matt Roach
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
REIS (Research Engagement & Innovation Services)
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 4 months, 31 days
Research summary
EMRTS (Emergency Medical Retrieval and Transfer Service) Cymru is a service hosted by Swansea Bay University Health Board. The EMRTS Critical Care Hub (ECCH) is a function staffed by clinicians and allocators with the challenge of reviewing ~2000 emergency calls a day for the fewer than 1% suitable for EMRTS attendance. Preliminary to an actual dispatch, there is a need to find which of the many calls are best to interrogate for those most likely to benefit from a specialist critical care intervention. There is capacity to interrogate only a proportion of the total presenting each shift.
A particular challenge is that both interrogation decisions and actual dispatch decisions are made in a busy context of other tasks carried out at the hub. EMRTS would like to explore whether algorithmic approaches to assist the preliminary step of which calls to interrogate are likely to be effective, safe and feasible in their existing context.
Study participants are ECCH staff. The approach is to use pseudonymised call data (not identifiable patient data) to explore how well an algorithmic assistive tool might help staff to quickly and appropriately focus on calls most likely to benefit from pre-hospital critical care. Attention is paid to how the performance of an assistive tool affects how much influence it has on users. Previous work shows that a high performing tool has a positive influence in this context. But related work suggests a low performing tool may have adverse influence. So the emphasis here is on discovering both the strengths and limitations of an algorithmic approach in a complex, realistic workflow.
User studies with ECCH staff emulate their work at the hub which is observed and quantified. They participate in semi-structured interviews in addition to the user studies.
REC name
N/A
REC reference
N/A