Dispatch of Emergency Call Using Video Streaming Compared With Traditional Telephone Communication

In the Emergency Medical Dispatch Center, all EMS dispatchers were divided into one of two clusters with 11 EMS dispatchers in each cluster. Because of few clusters, a matched-pair (MP) design was used based on the average proportion of the dispatched level of urgency (highest level of urgency used as primary matching criteria), years of employment and the average duration of emergency calls in a 3-months period (1st of January 2022 - 31st of March 2022) before the implementation of video streaming. Newly employed personnel where matching was not possible were randomly assigned to one of the two clusters. Prior to the study period, video streaming was gradually implemented in the intervention group during a 6-months period (1st of July 2022 - 31st of December 2022). Using a cluster randomized setup, the aim was to investigate differences in the management of emergency calls (dispatches) when emergency medical service (EMS) dispatchers use video streaming compared with telephone-only (audio-only) communication. All emergency calls will be randomly distributed between the two clusters.