The Decision Support System and Conventional Method of Telephone Triage by Nurses in Emergency Medical Services: A Comparative Investigation

The demand for medical emergencies often begins with a call to a dispatch center. An appropriate performance of this unit influences providing effective services significantly. This study aimed to compare the effect of using revised New Jersey telephone triage manual as a Decision Support System and the conventional methods on the time duration of mission taking and the performance of emergency medical dispatchers which were done by 115 emergency nurses of Qom, Iran, in 2012. This quasi-experimental study aimed to compare the effects of two methods on the performance of nurses of Qom. Conventional (September and October) and DSS data (December and January) were extracted and compared. November was skipped due to nurses' familiarity with the program. Performing the new method improved the overall performance significantly (P < 0.05). The DSS method increased the appropriate performance and decreased inappropriate performance significantly, but in the time duration of mission taking there was no a significant difference comparing two methods (p = 0.342). This method has been shown to improve both patient outcomes, as well as the cost of care.