Relationship between emergency call inquiry and transport decision Investigation of call characteristics in emergency calls without emergency physician involvement in Bavaria

Background: Utilization of public ambulance services in Bavaria has been increasing for years, and with it the empty transport rates. To further improve the assessment/categorization of emergency calls in Bavaria, we retrospectively examined whether there are communication characteristics in emergency calls without subsequent emergency physician involvement that predict subsequent transport status and influence the duration of emergency call query.Methods: Retrospective quantitative analysis of qualitatively collected emergency calls from the integrated dispatch centers (ILS) of Munich and Bayreuth/Kulmbach. Calls were categorized as ambulance call without transport (RoT) and ambulance call with transport (TP). Descriptive methods, linear and logistic regressions were used for the analysis.Results: Information about the patient's breathing, consciousness and pain status was less frequently associated with a RoT call. Presence of information about the patient's circulatory and neurological condition as well as the emergence of a stressful situation and the caller being overwhelmed with the situation were more often associated with a RoT intervention. Situations where the caller is overwhelmed or a caller speaking a foreign language resulted, ceteris paribus, in an increase of the average duration of the emergency call; the lack of German language skills, however, had no influence on the likelihood of a RoT intervention.Conclusion: The results indicate a correlation between communication characteristics and transport status. The medical query is of great importance in this context. Furthermore, overwhelmed callers and also linguistic factors were identified, as influencing the alarm decision of the dispatcher.