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Volume 17 Supplement 2

33rd International Symposium on Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine

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Overtriage and undertriage in a prehospital system over 7 years

Critical Care volume 17, Article number: P276 (2013) Cite this article

Introduction

The Novara 118 emergency medical system (EMS) dispatch center manages medical emergency calls coming from a region that spreads out over 1,400 km2 and includes 88 towns and a population of 385,000 people; inhabitant density is 275 inhabitants/km2.

Methods

Data collection from 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2011 was obtained (EMS software SaveOnLine® Suite 4; REGOLA s.r.l., Turin, Italy). Triage used was the Medical Priority Dispatch System and severity was defined by color codes.

Results

During the study period the Novara 118 dispatch center managed a total of 122,384 EMS interventions. Median (interquartile) overestimation (regardless of severity) was 10.0% (2.4 to 14.1%) while median underestimation was 1.5% (0.8 to 2.5%). See Tables 1 and 2.

Conclusion

Overall there were no statistical differences between the observation years either for overtriage or undertriage. When observed individually, trauma showed the only significant overtriage reduction over time; there were no individual modifications in undertriage over time.

Table 1 Overtriage (%)
Full size table
Table 2 Undertriage (%)
Full size table

References

  1. Neely KW, Eldurkar JA, Drake ME: Acad Emerg Med. 2000, 7: 174-180. 10.1111/j.1553-2712.2000.tb00523.x

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universitè del Piemonte Orientale A. Avogadro, Novara, Italy

    L Carenzo, F Barra, A Messina, D Colombo, T Fontana & F Della Corte

Authors
  1. L Carenzo
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  2. F Barra
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  3. A Messina
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  4. D Colombo
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  5. T Fontana
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  6. F Della Corte
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Carenzo, L., Barra, F., Messina, A. et al. Overtriage and undertriage in a prehospital system over 7 years. Crit Care 17 (Suppl 2), P276 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12214

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12214

Keywords

Critical Care

ISSN: 1364-8535