28 The difference between physician assistants and ambulance nurses as solo emergency care providers in EMS, a cross sectional study

Aim The aim of the study is to compare the assessment, treatment, referral, and follow up contact with the dispatch centre of emergency patients treated by the physician assistant (PA) and ambulance nurse (RN) in emergency medical services (EMS) in the Netherlands. Methods In a cross-sectional document study in two EMS regions we included 991 patients, treated by two PAs (n=493) and 23 RNs (n=498). Data were drawn from predefined and free text fields in the electronic patient records and analysed using descriptive statistics. We used χ2 and Mann-Whitney U tests to analyse for differences in outcome of care. Statistical significance was assumed at a level of p Results In line with the medical education, PAs used a medical diagnostic approach (16%, n=77) and an exam of organ tract systems (31%, n=155). PAs consulted more often other medical specialists (33%) than RNs (17%) (χ2=35.5, p Conclusion PAs seemed to operate from a more general medical perspective. They referred significantly less patients to the ED. References Bloemhoff, et al. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine2016;24:86. Affiliation of presenting author is Eastern Regional Emergency Healthcare Network, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, the Netherlands Conflict of interest None declared. Funding Ministery of Health Welfare and Sports, the Netherlands