ABSTRACTS
SMS-Based Emergency Medical Dispatching for Prehospital Care in a Resource-Limited SettingAuthor: Jason Friesen, MPH, EMT-P | | Associate Authors: Dianne Dorville Tavarez, MD, Reynaldo Ortiz Santos, Benjamin Kaufman, MD
Introduction Early access to trained emergency responders in the prehospital setting improves outcomes in acute medical emergencies, including cardiac arrest, trauma, childbirth and cholera. This study evaluated an SMS-based emergency dispatching platform for prehospital care in a resource-limited setting. Through mobile phones, trained local volunteers were crowdsourced to respond rapidly to emergent patients and response times were compared to mature prehospital systems. Objective To evaluate an SMS-based emergency dispatching platform for prehospital care in a resource-limited setting. Method: A retrospective analysis of emergencies dispatched to a volunteer community first responder agency in the Dominican Republic was conducted over a 2-year period. Requests for emergency assistance were received at the agency call center. Alerts were broadcast to first responders’ mobile phones through an emergency medical dispatching platform. This system automated the allocation and coordination of resources from initial alert to handoff at a healthcare facility. The primary outcome was response time; the secondary outcome was cost. Results Twenty volunteer community first responders trained in Basic Life Support (BLS) were enrolled in the dispatching platform to coordinate prehospital response. Over the 2-year study period, the community volunteers responded to 1,614 emergencies. On average, total response time (6 minutes, 41 seconds) was less than the standard required for mature prehospital systems (6 minutes, 45 seconds) in high-income countries (HICs). Costs were reduced as the platform requires only mobile phones and a laptop. Conclusion An SMS-based emergency medical dispatch platform enabled community first responders in a resource-limited setting to respond rapidly to emergencies. In this study, response times were comparable to those in mature trauma systems in HICs at a fraction of the cost.
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