• Anton Westman, Britt-Inger Saveman, Ulf Björnstig, Johan Hylander, and Lina Gyllencreutz.
• Department of Surgical and Perioperative Sciences, Surgery, Centre for Disaster Medicine, Umeå University, 901 87, Umeå, Sweden. anton.westman@umu.se.
• Scand J Trauma Resus. 2021 Jul 21; 29 (1): 99.

BackgroundIn chemical incidents, infrequent but potentially disastrous, the World Health Organization calls for inter-organizational coordination of actors involved. Multi-organizational studies of chemical response capacities are scarce. We aimed to describe chemical incident experiences and perceptions of Swedish fire and rescue services, emergency medical services, police services, and emergency dispatch services personnel.MethodsEight emergency service organizations in two distinct and dissimilar regions in Sweden participated in one organization-specific focus group interview each. The total number of respondents was 25 (7 females and 18 males). A qualitative inductive content analysis was performed.ResultsThree types of information processing were derived as emerging during acute-phase chemical incident mobilization: Unspecified (a caller communicating with an emergency medical dispatcher), specified (each emergency service obtaining organization-specific expert information), and aligned (continually updated information from the scene condensed and disseminated back to all parties at the scene). Improvable shortcomings were identified, e.g. randomness (unspecified information processing), inter-organizational reticence (specified information processing), and downprioritizing central information transmission while saving lives (aligned information processing).ConclusionsThe flow of information may be improved by automation, public education, revised dispatcher education, and use of technical resources in the field. Future studies should independently assess these mechanism's degree of impact on mobilisation of emergency services in chemical incidents.© 2021. The Author(s).

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