Abstract:

Czech and German emergency medical service workers often have to intervene in an area around the Czech-German border. The goal of “Concept of coordination and realization of crossborder cooperation between emergency medical service workers“ project (GÜRD) is to make the cooperation between Czech and German emergency medical service workers easier and efficient. Thanks to the Project GÜRD, a tool was created. The tool’s main purpose is to help to overcome the language barrier between a paramedic that is handing over a patient to a doctor in the ER, if one of them speaks Czech and the other one speaks German.

The tool uses pictograms, therefore it is easy to use and navigate within. The tool was created according to the MIST protocol. The tool was first tested on April 4th, 2017 during Tactical training „Salvátor“ in Karlovy Vary and proved to be useful in helping to overcome the language barrier, helping to save the time needed to hand over a patient and helping to give enough information about the patient.

The tool was tested again during another tactical training on November 2nd, 2017. The test results were published by Jakub Oliberius in his bachelor thesis, written under Faculty of Health Care studies of University of West Bohemia. The article showed the latest version of the pictogram tool together with clear explanation on how to propely use it.

These days the tool is used not only in real work of emergency medical service workers in the Czech Republic and in Germany but also as an educational tool for paramedic students at the Faculty of Health Care studies of University of West Bohemia in Pilsen.

Keywords:

Pictogram tool, emergency medical services, education, the language barrier.