Identifying the Educational and Technical Needs of the Emergency Dispatch Service in Kosovo using Hierarchical Task Analysis

• Study/Objective: The objective of this research is to document and evaluate the technical and educational needs for the emergency response system in Pristina, Kosovo. This is a current work in progress, and the part reported here focuses on the needs so far identified through Hierarchical Task Analyses (HTA) of the current dispatch system.Background: There is currently a lack of support systems for the emergency services in Pristina. Specifically, there are no support systems to aid coordination of the resources available to the emergency dispatch. This might delay emergency care to patients in need. This project relies on a Man-Technology-Organization (MTO) perspective and aims to create additional capacity for all parts (M, T, and O) in the emergency response chain.Methods: The ongoing research project will be conducted in several phases; the first of which is a data collection phase to analyze the needs of the emergency services as an advanced  socio-technical  system.  This  phase  relies  on interviews with staff and an analysis of the current technology in use.Results: Eight interviews have been conducted so far in the project. The HTA analyses of the collected data material for the different roles (dispatch, ambulance, and ER-staff) show that there are several time-consuming subtasks that might delay the dispatch of emergency services. Through the HTAs, improvement needs has been identified for all three MTO areas: the human area, the technological area, and the organizational area.Conclusion: The overall goal of this project is to create capacity and increase system resilience by introducing educational and technical interventions aimed at reducing or removing the identified, inefficient tasks. This increased capacity should result in faster and more time-efficient prehospital emergency response and, through this, improved patient outcome. The next phase of the project will implement interventions aimed at the needs identified in this project.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Annan medicin och hälsovetenskap -- Övrig annan medicin och hälsovetenskap (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Other Medical and Health Sciences -- Other Medical and Health Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)