OBJECTIVE To describe the demographic and clinical characteristics of patients who are not transported to hospital after an emergency (999) call to the East Midlands Ambulance Service, the reason for non-transportation, and the priority assigned when the ambulance is dispatched. METHODS The first 500 consecutive non-transported patients from 1 March 2000 were identified from the ambulance ser...

OBJECTIVES This paper aims to examine whether an adaptation of the International Classification of Disease (ICD) coding system can be applied retrospectively to final paramedic assessment data in an ambulance dataset with a view to developing more fine-grained, clinically relevant case definitions than are available through point-of-call data. METHODS Over 1.2 million case records were extrac...

Aiming at improving the efficiency and reliability of ambulance service, several location models for ambulance stations have been proposed in the operations research literature. Well-known approaches to this problem are coverage model and median model. Coverage model looks for the location to maximize the (deterministic or probabilistic) covered demand of ambulance calls. Hence this model can b...

OBJECTIVES To determine the association between ambulance response time and survival from out of hospital cardiopulmonary arrest and to estimate the effect of reducing response times. DESIGN Cohort study. SETTING Scottish Ambulance Service. SUBJECTS All out of hospital cardiopulmonary arrests due to cardiac disease attended by the Scottish Ambulance Service during May 1991 to March 1998. ...

BACKGROUND In 1999, a new major trauma system was proposed for the state of Victoria, Australia. The guidelines for the new system were aimed at delivering major trauma cases to definitive trauma care in the least time possible. The aim of the present study was to analyse the potential effect of this system on Victoria's ambulance services. METHODS The present study modelled the workload of m...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Few acute stroke patients are treated with alteplase, partly because of significant prehospital delays after symptom onset. The aim of this study was to determine among ambulance-transported stroke patients factors associated with stroke recognition and factors associated with a call for ambulance assistance within 1 hour from symptom onset. METHODS For 6 months in 2004...

A new ambulance is helping deliver emergency medical care in a manner that is intended to improve safety for patients as well as providers, increase efficiency during patient care, decrease supply costs and provide better communication with hospital staff. The ambulance is a working proof of concept using a beta version of Ferno’s new modular iN∫Traxx component set. The ambulance was built for ...

OBJECTIVES Adherence to prehospital guidelines and protocols is suboptimal. Insight into influencing factors is necessary to improve adherence. The aim of this study was to identify factors that influence ambulance nurses' adherence to a National Protocol Ambulance Care (NPAC). METHODS A questionnaire was developed using the literature, a questionnaire and expert opinion. Ambulance nurses (n=...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The National Stroke Foundation of Australia has run 12 public awareness campaigns since 2004. Campaign exposure and funding has varied annually and regionally during this time. The aim of this study was to measure the effect of campaigns on calls to ambulance for stroke across Australia in exposed regions (paid or pro bono advertising). METHODS All ambulance services in...

OBJECTIVES To assess the degree of inappropriate use of the London Ambulance Service and analyse the reasons for misuse. DESIGN An immediate assessment of the appropriateness of the "999" call by the ambulanceperson and casualty senior house officer followed by a retrospective review of each case by the accident and emergency (A&E) consultant. SETTING A busy inner London A&E department. M...