Ambulance nurses' experiences of deciding a patient does not require ambulance care

Abstract

Aim To describe ambulance nurses' experience of deciding a patient does not require ambulance care. Design An inductive, empirical study with a qualitative approach. Methods Data collection was conducted through semi‐structured interviews, and collected data were analysed with qualitative manifest content analysis. Data were collected during the spring 2017, and eight ambulance nurses participated. Results The findings are presented in one main category, which is “Not very ill but a difficult decision” with totally three subcategories. The ambulance nurse's experience of making the assessment when the patient has no need for ambulance care is like walking the balance of slack line. This means that the assessment can be both easy and very difficult but something that definitely requires experience, knowledge and dedication.

Satisfaction among non-conveyed patients and significant others when discharged at the scene by the ambulance service: an exploratory cross-sectional survey

“…instructions regarding self-care advice [ 18 ]. As highlighted by SANs, the AS guidelines lack clarity and to a large extent do not include the patient perspective or assignments involving non-conveyance [ 9 – 12 ], which calls for further development.…”

“…The phenomenon of non-conveyance has been explored through epidemiological measures [ 4 – 8 ], indicating that between 12 and 42% of all ambulance assignments resulted in non-conveyance to the Accident and Emergency department (A&E). On the other hand, studies describing the phenomenon from Specialist Ambulance Nurses’ (SAN) perspective [ 9 – 12 ] reveal patient safety issues and lack of clarity in the guidelines Furthermore, knowledge concerning the satisfaction patients and significant others when subjected to non-conveyance is relatively scare and mostly limited to qualitative studies [ 13 – 18 ]. The AS have been facing a growing demand due to changes in population demographics and an increasing number of calls and ambulance assignments [ 19 ].…”

The dialogue as decision support; lived experiences of extended collaboration when an ambulance is called

“…Care level decisions are challenging for ambulance personnel to make and are influenced by multiple factors, both patient-related and healthcare system-related (Ebben et al, 2017 ). Ambulance personnel’s experiences of decisions of non-conveyance to hospitals are diverse, including a sense of certainty, fear and uncertainty, and doubting the correctness of the decision (Backman et al, 2019 ; Lederman et al, 2019 ). The diverse experiences are possibly connected to the degree of complexity of patients’ symptoms.…”

Ações do enfermeiro no Serviço de Atendimento Móvel de Urgência: Revisão integrativa

“…Atua na educação contínua e permanente junto à equipe como um todo, realiza por meio de ações investigativas a situação da vítima e presta a assistência a ela no próprio local do acidente em busca da sua estabilização. O enfermeiro, também, precisa buscar soluções para as intercorrências que acontecem durante no seu turno de trabalho, que exigem desse profissional grande capacidade de articulação visto que, necessita relacionar-se com os demais componentes da rede de urgência e manter um clima inter-relacional dialógico, beneficiando a todos os envolvidos nessa atividade (Backman et al, 2019;Brasil, 2002;Malvestio et al, 2019;Mota & Santos, 2020;O'Dwyer et al, 2017;Sjölin et al, 2020;Tavares et al, 2017).…”