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A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS
Introduction Emergency medical services (EMS) play a vital role in addressing the high burden of disease posed by emergency conditions in low-to-medium income countries and it is vital to ensure that EMS care is of a high quality. Complaints and their management are an important mechanism in address...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Division of Emergency Medicine
2021
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| _version_ | 1867614184783478784 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Spicer, Richard Michael Frank |
| author2 | Hodkinson, Peter |
| author_browse | Hodkinson, Peter Spicer, Richard Michael Frank |
| author_facet | Hodkinson, Peter Spicer, Richard Michael Frank |
| author_sort | Spicer, Richard Michael Frank |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | Introduction Emergency medical services (EMS) play a vital role in addressing the high burden of disease posed by emergency conditions in low-to-medium income countries and it is vital to ensure that EMS care is of a high quality. Complaints and their management are an important mechanism in addressing individual patient concerns and ensuring accountability to the public. Expanding the role of complaints to effectively affect system-wide quality improvement requires knowledge of trends based on aggregated complaint data. This study aims to describe the volume and nature of complaints received by an urban EMS organisation in the Western Cape. Methodology A retrospective analysis was performed of all non-clinical complaints received for the 2018 calendar year by the call centre of a public EMS in Cape Town, South Africa. All complaint documents were collected and collated with the original case dispatch information. Complaints were categorised according to a standardised complaint coding taxonomy published previously. Complaint investigation outcomes and recommendations were analysed by themes identified during the study. Results A total of 156 complaints were received which referred to 172 patients. Complaints originated primarily from healthcare providers (72%) and patients or public (22%). Inter-facility transfers (73%) generated the most complaints. Encoding of complaint narratives revealed 302 individual service issues, which were classified into taxonomy derived domains (Clinical – 36%; Management – 44%; Relationship – 20%). The “Management” domain highlighted delay issues, accounting for 38% (116/302). Conclusion In this urban EMS, the majority of complaints are related to delays. Complaints were primarily lodged by other healthcare providers. Complaint rates lodged by patients and public are low, and would suggest that a unified and well publicised complaint mechanism is necessary, in order to increase public involvement in service quality improvement. Further research is recommended to validate a taxonomy for EMS complaints specifically. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/33036 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:48:00.983Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| publishDateRange | 2021 |
| publishDateSort | 2021 |
| publisher | Division of Emergency Medicine |
| publisherStr | Division of Emergency Medicine |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/33036 A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS Spicer, Richard Michael Frank Hodkinson, Peter Bester, Beatrix Emergency Medicine Introduction Emergency medical services (EMS) play a vital role in addressing the high burden of disease posed by emergency conditions in low-to-medium income countries and it is vital to ensure that EMS care is of a high quality. Complaints and their management are an important mechanism in addressing individual patient concerns and ensuring accountability to the public. Expanding the role of complaints to effectively affect system-wide quality improvement requires knowledge of trends based on aggregated complaint data. This study aims to describe the volume and nature of complaints received by an urban EMS organisation in the Western Cape. Methodology A retrospective analysis was performed of all non-clinical complaints received for the 2018 calendar year by the call centre of a public EMS in Cape Town, South Africa. All complaint documents were collected and collated with the original case dispatch information. Complaints were categorised according to a standardised complaint coding taxonomy published previously. Complaint investigation outcomes and recommendations were analysed by themes identified during the study. Results A total of 156 complaints were received which referred to 172 patients. Complaints originated primarily from healthcare providers (72%) and patients or public (22%). Inter-facility transfers (73%) generated the most complaints. Encoding of complaint narratives revealed 302 individual service issues, which were classified into taxonomy derived domains (Clinical – 36%; Management – 44%; Relationship – 20%). The “Management” domain highlighted delay issues, accounting for 38% (116/302). Conclusion In this urban EMS, the majority of complaints are related to delays. Complaints were primarily lodged by other healthcare providers. Complaint rates lodged by patients and public are low, and would suggest that a unified and well publicised complaint mechanism is necessary, in order to increase public involvement in service quality improvement. Further research is recommended to validate a taxonomy for EMS complaints specifically. 2021-03-01T18:41:23Z 2021-03-01T18:41:23Z 2020 2021-03-01T12:28:51Z Master Thesis Masters MPhil http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33036 eng application/pdf Division of Emergency Medicine Faculty of Health Sciences |
| spellingShingle | Emergency Medicine Spicer, Richard Michael Frank A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS |
| thesis_degree_str | Master's |
| title | A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS |
| title_full | A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS |
| title_fullStr | A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS |
| title_full_unstemmed | A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS |
| title_short | A descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a Western Cape EMS |
| title_sort | descriptive study of call centre complaints and their management in a western cape ems |
| topic | Emergency Medicine |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/33036 |
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