oa Pre-notification of healthcare responders reduces the risk of exposure to infectious diseases

Background: The ambulance service communication center is the first access point of the public to the health care services in the state of Qatar. It's receiving between 400 and 600 emergency calls per day which are processed through a very robust and consistent workflow, for the aim to triage the emergency incidents and distinguish high and low acuity patients and send an adequate response. Within these emergency calls there are cases that will be recognized as associated with communicable diseases where the healthcare responders are at high risk of exposure.

Aims: Protecting healthcare workers from infectious diseases and controlling exposure by implementing an attentive communication network.

Methods: HMC-AS communications center implemented a communicable disease screening procedure for calls coming from Primary health centers, Hospitals and community. To identify potential infectious patients and PRE-NOTIFY: The responding crew and prompt the use of proper Personal Protective Equipment; The receiving facility to activate their procedure.

Summary of results: The Screening procedure played an important role in minimizing the exposure of the pre-hospital care responders and improved the hospital preparedness in receiving infectious patients.

Conclusion: The communication officer's compliance to the screening criteria showed an improvement and this ensured that the PRE-NOTIFICATION is done properly in a timely manner.