The emergency medical service in the Central Denmark Region and the Medical Helpline 1813 in the Capital Region of Denmark have tested an ‘acute button’ that allows callers to jump the queue in urgent situations. New research from Aarhus University shows that only three per cent of callers have used the acute button, which the Capital Region of Denmark’s Emergency Medical Services have already made permanent.

2019.02.20 | Helle Horskjær Hansen

The trial with the acute button ran in the second half of 2017. In 2017, the emergency medical service in the Central Denmark Region was contacted approximately 660,000 times, while the corresponding figure for the Medical Helpline 1813 was approx. 940,000 times. Previous studies have shown that five per cent of those who contacted the emergency medical service considered the reason for contact so serious that they had to speak to a medical doctor immediately. Photo: The Central Denmark Region.

“You are now number seven in the queue, please wait” is a familiar message when ringing to the emergency medical service – but during a trial period, pressing the button one more time allowed the caller to jump to the front of the queue. The trial period has now ended, and figures show that only three per cent made use of the acute button.

“I’m pleasantly surprised that so few have used the acute button. Everyone I talked to before the trial guessed it would be well over three per cent, so the fear that the button would be misused is unfounded,” says the person behind the study, PhD student Jonas Boysen Fynboe Ebert from the Department of Public Health, Aarhus University.

According to Jonas Boysen Fynboe Ebert, the acute button can make a difference for a particular group of patients:

"I’ve been surprised at the number of people who ring to the emergency medical service and the Medical Helpline 1813 with chest pains. There are far more than you would think. In these cases, the doctor will often suspect a blood clot in the heart, which is of course so serious that the patient ought to have called 112. The acute button can be relevant for this group,” he says.

Give up because the queue is too long

The Medical Helpline 1813 in the Capital Region of Denmark has just made the acute button permanent. Marie Baastrup, Unit Manager in the Capital Region of Denmark’s Emergency Medical Services, explains:

“The acute button helps increase the sense of security for people who are ill and need to be able to talk to a medical doctor or nurse on the Medical Helpline 1813 without delay. Our data and experience show that people in the Capital Region of Denmark have a good sense of when they need to press that button and jump the queue to get urgent help.” 

Jonas Boysen Fynboe Ebert expects to see the emergency medical service in the Central Denmark Region follow suit.

“The experiences we’ve reaped from using the button have been good. We expect to present further results from the project within the coming six months. Here we’ll focus on what the medical doctors and staff working in the emergency medical service and 1813 think about the acute button and also on whether having the opportunity to use the acute button increases the sense of security and satisfaction among people in general,” he explains.

In the case of two-and-a-half per cent of all calls to the emergency medical service, the medical doctor on the other end of the phone immediately ordered an ambulance with emergency response. 

“This shows there is a risk that some of the people who contact the emergency medical service or 1813 with serious conditions can end up waiting too long in the telephone queue. Conversely, there may be people who hang up again because of how long they have to wait and instead call 112, even though the reason why they’re calling could have been dealt with by the emergency medical service or Medical Helpline 1813,” says the researcher. 

Background for the results:

• The study is a randomised intervention study.

• The study is financed by four Danish foundations: TrygFonden, Praksisforskningsfonde, Multipraksisudvalgsfonden (MPU Foundation) and the Kvalitets- & efteruddannelsesfonden (KEU).

• Partners: The emergency medical service in the Central Denmark Region and the Medical Helpline 1813.

• The study “Giving callers the option to bypass the telephone waiting line in out-of-hours services: a comparative intervention study” has been published in the Scandinavian Journal of Primary Health Care.

Contact

PhD student Jonas Boysen Fynboe Ebert
Aarhus University, Department of Public Health
Mobile: (+45) 2530 9292
jonasebert@ph.au.dk