LEVEL OF COMPLETION OF THE PREHOSPITAL CARE AND TRANSFER RECORD AS A QUALITY INDICATOR IN AN EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICE

BASICS: A Prehospital Care and Transfer Recording (PCTR) is an out-of-hospital medical recording. This paper was made to assess and compare the level of fulfillment of the basic parameters of the PCTR developed by the Life Support Units with nurses (Life Support Units with Nurse, LSUWN and without nurses (Basic Life Support Units, BLSU) from SAMUR Bilbao in 2010. METHODOLOGY: A descriptive, retrospective and comparative study was performed by analysing a randomized sample of 660 PCTR (precision 3%), aiming to check the fulfillment of the basic data. RESULTS: 98.33% of total recordings were readable. In overall, fulfillment rate was 90.31% (CI 89.24 - 91.31%) of all basic parameters for LSUWN PCTR and 84.81% (CI 83.56 to 86%) for BLSU. 34.1% of PCTR were completely and correctly fulfilled. The LSUWN scored significantly better (p<0.000). There were recording failures in "date and time", "address" and "physical examination". There were differences between the recording of clinical and administrative information (88.64% vs 86.72%, p = 0.02). DISCUSSION: In order to consider a parameter has optimal, it has to reach 100% of fulfillment. If it doesn't, and its score reaches no more than 80%, it should be reviewed. In this case, the results would be considered acceptable, but the administrative items of BLSU records, and allergies in both units should be strengthened. LSUWN has obtained better scores. The need of recording clinical information must be instilled as evidence of quality care.