ABSTRACT

The work of ambulance dispatchers can be characterized as a highly cognitively demanding task involving dynamic conditions, time pressure, high stakes, uncertain information and multiple actors. An ambulance dispatcher has to screen incoming calls, diagnose the nature and severity of the problem, determine availability of ambulances and allocate them to the problem while maintaining adequate resources for future problems. This type of work is often referred to as naturalistic decision-making tasks (O’Hare, Wiggens, Williams, & Wong, 1998).