Journal of telemedicine and telecare
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Tele-emergency provides audio/visual communication between a central emergency care centre (tele-emergency hub) and a distant emergency department (remote ED) for real-time emergency care consultation. The purpose of this mixed methods study is to examine how often tele-emergency is activated in usual practice and in what circumstances it is used. ⋯ Although only used in 3.5% of ED encounters on average, our findings provide evidence that tele-emergency activation is well reasoned and related to those situations when extra expert assistance is particularly beneficial.