Consumer education may help reduce the number of emergency ambulance calls for problems that could be safely managed in another setting, according to a study in Emergency Medicine Journal.
Researchers conducted interviews with patients and "carers" who had called an ambulance for a primary care-appropriate problem to determine the causes of their decisions. A thematic analysis of interviews revealed a superordinate theme of patient and carer anxiety in urgent-care decision-making and subthemes of the following:
• Perceptions of ambulance-based urgent care.
• Contrasting perceptions of community-based urgent care.
• Influence of previous urgent care experiences in decision-making.
• Interpersonal factors in lay assessment and management of medical risk and subsequent decision-making.
The authors suggested that educational intervention and communication between ambulance responders and primary care physicians may help reduce the amount of unnecessary telephone calls for ambulances.
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Researchers conducted interviews with patients and "carers" who had called an ambulance for a primary care-appropriate problem to determine the causes of their decisions. A thematic analysis of interviews revealed a superordinate theme of patient and carer anxiety in urgent-care decision-making and subthemes of the following:
• Perceptions of ambulance-based urgent care.
• Contrasting perceptions of community-based urgent care.
• Influence of previous urgent care experiences in decision-making.
• Interpersonal factors in lay assessment and management of medical risk and subsequent decision-making.
The authors suggested that educational intervention and communication between ambulance responders and primary care physicians may help reduce the amount of unnecessary telephone calls for ambulances.
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