ArticleBMC health services research2025
Feasibility and utility of telemedical support through a paramedic-led primary response service to aid emergency services in northwestern Germany.
Article in BMC health services research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- From Crowd to Care: Telemedical Delegation in Mass Gathering Medicine and Its Projected Impact on Hospital Transport-A Modified Delphi Study with Retrospective Modelling.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn Germany, the regional Associations of Statutory Health Insurance are responsible for providing an out-of-hours on-call service for family medicine. With a shortage of resident doctors in rural areas, maintaining this service becomes more challenging. This raises the question whether the combination of a physician-run telemedical support with a primary response service led by paramedics is feasible, and in which way the telemedical support affects decision-making on scene.
methodsWe implemented Germany's first Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)-based on-call service for paramedics on site with telemedical backup. Between March and June 2018, differentiated SOPs and a special medical backpack were established. Participating paramedics and telemedicine doctors were trained in SOPs and the use of telemedical software. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse data collected during the study period from July 2018 until December 2021.
resultsOverall, 17% of all cases required telemedical support, primarily for diagnostic confirmation of musculoskeletal disorders, unclear symptom constellations, and diseases of the cardiac circulatory system. In 56% of all telemedicine-assisted cases paramedics on scene altered their originally planned course of action following telemedical support.
conclusionThis study demonstrates that telemedical assistance is a feasible alternative to the long-established doctor-run on-call system which is currently implemented throughout Germany. In the majority of cases, the telemedical input had a significant impact on the decision-making process of the responsible paramedic on scene. Limitations arise through limited information on some variables driving that decision-making process. Furthermore, the number of telemedical personnel required to facilitate the provision of telemedical assistance across an entire national healthcare system remains unclear.
trial registrationGerman register for clinical trials DRKS00024037, registered March 18th 2022 (BfArM - Deutsches Register Klinischer Studien (DRKS).
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