Patent ID: 8066638

Claim:
A computer implemented method performed entirely by a dispatch center computer system at a dispatch center to assist a dispatcher responding to a telephonic call from a caller regarding the medical condition of a patient to thereby enable determination of information about a vital sign of the patient without the assistance of medical equipment at a remote location of the caller and patient, the dispatcher to dispatch emergency medical responders to the remote location where the caller and patient are both present, the method comprising: the dispatch center computer system providing an emergency dispatch protocol to assist the dispatcher when communicating with the caller, the emergency dispatch protocol presenting a plurality of pre-scripted interrogatories for the dispatcher to ask the caller, and possible answers that the caller may provide, to collect information regarding the medical condition of the patient, wherein the emergency dispatch protocol is configured to generate an emergency medical dispatch response based on collected information to dispatch the emergency medical responders to the remote location; the dispatch center computer system initiating a diagnostic tool configured to aid the dispatcher in uniformly collecting from the caller information about the patient to aid in determining a vital sign of the patient, the diagnostic tool resident within a memory of the dispatch center computer system; the diagnostic tool providing instructions for the dispatcher to vocally relay to the caller over the telephonic call to assist the caller in providing information about the vital sign of the patient; the diagnostic tool receiving dispatcher-entered input indicative of the caller's observations regarding the vital sign of the patient, wherein the caller's observations are vocally relayed over the telephonic call to the dispatcher; relying only on the dispatcher-entered input indicative of the caller's observations as communicated vocally to the dispatcher, the diagnostic tool determining a vital sign of the patient; and the dispatch center computer system determining a priority for the emergency medical dispatch response based on the vital sign result determined by the diagnostic tool to thereby dispatch emergency medical responders according to the priority.