Misuse and abuse of 194 phone number at Emergency Medical Services Belgrade

Abstract

Introduction: Operators at the Emergency Medical Services Belgrade call centre (194) receive a large number of calls that don't represent calls for urgent medical assistance but could rather be classified as intentionally placed prank calls. Misdials and hang-up calls are another 194 phone number problem. It is suspected that many of these calls occur when callers misdial other phone numbers similar to 194 and thus reach EMS operators. In other parts of the world this problem affects other first responders as well, like firefighters and police who are functionally incorporated with EMS. Scope: To determine what percentage of all EMS calls represent prank calls and misdials of 194 phone number at EMS Belgrade. Methodology: We have used our Excel database containing all phone calls placed to the 194 phone number during the year 2009. Operators at 194 EMS call centre use a computer database to fill out the templates with all the necessary data. As soon as an operator realizes during the conversation with a caller that there is no need for urgent medical care they advise the caller and the call is terminated and entered into the database as a misdial or a prank call. Telephone numbers from all callers are automatically entered into the database and have been used in identifying these types of calls. For our study we have analyzed all 739742 calls received in the year 2009. Results: 93.393 ili 12,625% of all 194 connections are misuse or abuse, and 79708 or10,775% are wrong connections. Conclusion: 23% of all operators work on 194 telephone are misuse or abuse or wrong connections.