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Ciara

@Sven A recent news story here (Denmark) about emergency service dispatchers haranguing callers after sending them an SMS with a video link. Idea is good, it lets you show the injury or wound for assessment. But there are recordings of dispatchers being rude and demanding to people who, mid-panic and mid-emergency, couldn't find & work the link. They just kept ordering a distressed man to work out the videolink on his phone instead of just dropping it and sending help for his injured wife.

8 comments
Sven :8bit_mario2:

@CiaraNi Ugggh.

Modern healthcare needs a lot of change, this is not one of them. 😅

Ciara

@Sven It's a wonderful solution when used appropriately, but it requires good situational judgment by the people operating it. They need to know when *not* to insist that it is used and to understand the human factors (highly distressed end users, often in pain).

eyrea

@CiaraNi @Sven That's horrible! I hope they got some training, starting with having to listen to the recordings.

Ciara

@eyrea @Sven It was a news story here earlier this year because the situation had come to light. So at least it is being dealt with, including through training. It just unnerves me that we have reached a point where people need to be trained not to fixate on a single digital solution, to think situationally in cases as obvious as this. We seem to have normalised the idea that humans must adapt to machines in all circumstances!

eyrea

@CiaraNi @Sven I used to train customer service (not healthcare, thank goodness), and it was a struggle there too. So many times the operators assumed they were dealing with idiots and it turned out to be a software problem.

Sven :8bit_mario2:

@eyrea I worked in different customer service roles for a long time and the thing is: Even if you talk to an idiot, it's *still* way easier for both sides if you're empathetic with this idiot. 😅

@CiaraNi

Ciara

@Sven @eyrea Haha - I will be stealing and quoting this!

eyrea

@Sven @CiaraNi That is perfect. I wish I'd had that on me when I was a trainer.

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