---

Authors: Maha Baabdullah , Hamsah Faden , Rawan Alsubhi , Ahmed Almalki , Basim Masri , Abdullah Alharbi

---

Abstract

Background: One of the essential aspects of acquiring favorable patients’ outcomes is to deliver appropriate care to them. In pre-hospital settings, the procedure begins with the dispatch since dispatchers manage the assistance requests. The medical priority dispatch system (MPDS) has been developed to improve the dispatcher’s performance. It follows algorithms and questions which aid in classifying situations based on callers’ answers to specific questions. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of MPDS in enhancing patient outcomes. Methods: We searched PubMed, MEDLINE, Scopus, and six other electronic databases up to 17 August 2019. A combination of keywords relevant to MPDS was used to search for English published randomized controlled trials, case-control, and cohort studies evaluating MPDS and its impact on patient outcomes. Results: A total of 15 studies out of 755 were selected. All were observational cohort studies involving 1,394,366 participants; seven studies reported response time, four reported mortality rate, and four reported survival rates. We rated 14 of them as fair quality, and the rest were of poor quality based on the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. Eight studies supported the desired outcomes for the patient, whereas the rest depended on several factors to reach the desired outcomes. Conclusion: The majority of studies reported good results; however, there was no significant difference, and this might be an area, where the practice may change.

---

Keywords: Medical priority dispatch system, MPDS, EMS priority dispatch, advanced MPDS, pre-hospital dispatch, communication center, emergency calls, computer-aided dispatch, patient outcomes, survival rate, mortality rate, response time

---