DOES THE DIRECT PHONE WITH EMERGENCY SERVICES REDUCE THE TIME FOR HOSPITAL SELECTION?

Introduction and Objectives Our regular meeting with members of emergency services raised an issue about the delay before they talk with doctors over the phone. To resolve this, our hospital implemented the direct phone system in which doctors receive phone calls directly from emergency services. Herein we assessed the effectiveness of the system. Method This is a historically controlled study. We used the records of emergency services and measured time taken for hospital selection for the cases transferred to our hospital. We excluded cases in which other hospitals were called before us. We compared the time for hospital selection in one year before (group A) and after (group B) we implemented the direct phone system. For statistical analysis, we performed the F test for equality of variance. The student T test was performed when the equal variance was indicated, and the Welch T test was performed when the unequal variance was indicated. Results One hundred and eighty-two cases in group A and 325 cases in group B were included. The average time for hospital selection was 4 minutes 39 seconds +/- 2 minutes 39 seconds and 3 minutes 34 seconds +/- 2 minutes 04 seconds, respectively. The Welch T test showed there was a significant difference between group A and group B (p < 0.01). Conclusions The direct phone call to doctors from emergency services can reduce the time for hospital selection.