Utilization, Safety, and Technical Performance of a Telemedicine System for Prehospital Emergency Care: Observational Study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

As a consequence of increasing emergency medical service (EMS) missions requiring an EMS physician on site, we had implemented a unique prehospital telemedical emergency service as a new structural component to the conventional physician-based EMS in Germany.

Objective

We sought to assess the utilization, safety, and technical performance of this telemedical emergency service.

Methods

We conducted a retrospective analysis of all primary emergency missions with telemedical consultation of an EMS physician in the City of Aachen (250,000 inhabitants) during the first 3 operational years of our tele-EMS system. Main outcome measures were the number of teleconsultations, number of complications, and number of transmission malfunctions during teleconsultations.

SUBMITTER: Felzen M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6806125 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature