Medical versus regulatory necessity: regulation of ambulance service in Arizona

Barriers to EMS System Evaluation: Problems Associated with Field Data Collection

For more than two decades, emergency medical services (EMS) systems have proliferated primarily based upon governmental impetus and funding at the federal, state, and local levels. Although many of the foundations of patient care rendered in these systems have been based upon intuitive logic, the understanding of the impact on patient outcome is poor, at best. The reasons for the current status are varied, but five issues are preeminent:

1) The authority for the development of these medical systems has been based primarily in political and bureaucratic institutions which have little or no medical expertise;

2) Little attention has been paid to system evaluation, particularly in the area of cost-effectiveness;

3) Few academic medical institutions have become involved in EMS research;

4) Traditional approaches to medical research primarily are disease-specific and are not multidisciplinary. Thus these are not useful for evaluating and understanding the highly complex and uncontrolled environmental interactions that typify EMS systems; and

5) The process of efficiently and reliably collecting accurate data in the prehospital setting is extremely difficult.

Comparison of ambulance dispatch protocols for nontraumatic abdominal pain

STUDY OBJECTIVE

To compare rates of undertriage and overtriage of six ambulance dispatch protocols for the presenting complaint of nontraumatic abdominal pain, and to identify the optimal protocol.

DESIGN

Retrospective prehospital and emergency department chart review to classify patients' conditions as "emergency" or "nonemergency." Utility analysis was used to identify the preferred protocol and monetary cost-effectiveness analysis to identify the least expensive protocol.

SETTING

County emergency medical services (EMS) system with five receiving hospitals serving a mainly urban population of approximately 350,000.

PARTICIPANTS

Records of 902 patients who called 911 for nontraumatic abdominal pain were reviewed; patients not transported were excluded. Twenty-seven county EMS medical directors completed questionnaires.

RESULTS

Six ambulance dispatch protocols for nontraumatic abdominal pain were developed: indiscriminate-dispatch, four selective protocols, and no-dispatch. A dichotomous classification system was derived prospectively from the prehospital and medical records of patients who had activated the EMS system before the study period to define "emergency" and "nonemergency" conditions associated with nontraumatic abdominal pain. Emergency criteria identified patients with conditions requiring medical treatment within 1 hour. Reviewers determined, for each patient, whether an ambulance would have been dispatched by each of the protocols. Undertriage and overtriage rates were calculated for each protocol. County EMS medical directors assigned utility values to four potential outcomes of ambulance dispatch by the direct scaling method. The outcomes comprised correct and incorrect decisions to dispatch ambulances to patients with and without emergencies. The protocols were compared by decision analysis. A cost analysis was also performed, using an estimated marginal cost per transport of $302. Sensitivity analysis demonstrated the effect of varying the cost of an undertriage error and the cost per response. Of the 788 patients included in the study, 7.8% had conditions defined as emergencies. The four selective ambulance dispatch protocols had overtriage rates ranging from 10% to 51% and undertriage rates of 4% to 7%. None of the protocols was proven superior on the basis of the medical directors' assignment of utility values. The marginal cost of dispatching advanced life support ambulances to all patients with this complaint was $3,838 per emergency.

CONCLUSION

The majority of patients with nontraumatic abdominal pain who requested ambulance transport during the study period did not have conditions that were classified as emergencies. In the study model, if an undertriage error costs more than $3,674, indiscriminate ambulance dispatch is the least expensive protocol, and if an undertriage error costs less than $3,674, no ambulance dispatch is the least expensive strategy.

Evaluation of EMS management training offered during emergency medicine residency training

Physician involvement in the provision of both direct and indirect medical control to emergency medical providers is critical to the effective operation of an emergency medical services (EMS) system. We conducted a survey of all accredited emergency medicine residency programs in the United States to determine the content of EMS instruction provided to these physicians-in-training. The majority of programs provide an introduction to direct medical control, to EMS organizational structure, and the opportunity to participate in EMS-related research. Less than 65%, however, provide formal instruction in EMS risk management or quality assurance or the opportunity to observe policy-making bodies related to EMS. The importance placed on EMS during residency training is variable. EMS is the domain of emergency medicine, and adequate training of residents for these responsibilities is imperative.

Implementation of a computerized management information system in an urban fire department

An important aspect in the effective management of an emergency medical services system is the ability to monitor system performance. To provide this information on a timely basis, a comprehensive data collection system is required. We describe the design, implementation, use, and effect of a comprehensive, computerized data retrieval system within an urban fire department. Building on a data collection system already in place, it was possible to minimize the cost and accelerate the training process. A comparison is included between the different type of systems available for use with prehospital providers. Use of prehospital data collection systems results in more in-depth understanding of system operations and the status of prehospital medical care provided to the community.