Assessing the need for quality control in direct medical oversight: a survey of emergency medical services providers and medical directors

Objective: This study aimed to assess the need for quality control in the direct medical oversight process through a questionnaire survey of medical directors and emergency medical services (EMS) providers.Methods: This prospective survey targeted EMS providers and medical directors.The questionnaire collected information on demographic characteristics and perceptions regarding the need for quality control for direct medical oversight.Differences in perceived need between EMS providers and medical directors with respect to improved quality control for direct medical oversight during prehospital treatment provided by EMS providers were examined.Results: A total of 857 EMS providers and 37 medical directors were included.Among them, 87% of medical directors and 63% of EMS providers reported that the implementation of quality control was needed for direct medical oversight in their region.A higher proportion of medical directors than EMS providers indicated that quality control was necessary, not only for evaluating the performance of EMS providers during the direct medical oversight call process but also for addressing problems related to the performance of medical directors themselves.Only 22% of medical directors and 19% of EMS providers responded that medical directors adequately understood the prehospital situations experienced by EMS providers.In addition, 27% of EMS providers reported having doubts about the instructions received from medical directors during direct medical oversight.Conclusion: The necessity of quality control systems for direct medical oversight was recognized by more than 60% of both medical directors and EMS providers.Local EMS systems should be prepared to develop tools to evaluate the quality of direct medical oversight.