BACKGROUND Ambulance offload delay (AOD) has been recognized by the National Association of EMS Physicians (NAEMSP) as an important quality marker. AOD is the time between arrival of a patient by EMS and the time that the EMS crew has given report and moved the patient off of the EMS stretcher, allowing the EMS crew to begin the process of returning to service. The AOD represents a potential de...

BACKGROUND In patients with a major cardiac event, the first priority is to minimize time to treatment. For many patients, first contact with the health system is through emergency medical services (EMS). We set out to identify patient-level and neighborhood-level factors that were associated with elapsed time in EMS. METHODS AND RESULTS A retrospective cohort study was conducted in 10 munici...

BACKGROUND Trauma still stands atop of the list of emergencies. Transfer of these patients via Emergency Medical Services (EMS) dispatch is critical with regard to importance of timing. This aspect has achieved greater importance due to population increase and telephone triage. OBJECTIVES We aimed to decrease unnecessary Emergency Medical Services (EMS) missions via a computer program designe...

Educational research has found that conventional classroom discussions often demonstrate a gender bias. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in the use of IT to support organizational knowledge management by mediating discourse through EMS, E-mail, listservers, Lotus Notes, chat rooms, threaded discussions, and the like. But do these technologies foster more inclusive dialogue? Ma...

Prompt diagnosis and appropriate transport of patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is critical. We aimed to study differences in clinical outcomes by emergency medical services (EMS) usage and interhospital transfer in patients with SAH. We analyzed the CAVAS (CArdioVAscular disease Surveillance) database which is an emergency department-based, national cohort of cardiovascular disease i...

OBJECTIVE Sepsis is a serious condition with high mortality. Early treatment improves outcome and can be initiated by emergency medical services (EMS) personnel.The primary aim of our study was to investigate how many sepsis patients are transported by EMS to the internist at the emergency department (ED). The secondary aims were to compare these EMS patients with patients who arrived at the ED...

Background—In patients with a major cardiac event, the first priority is to minimize time to treatment. For many patients, first contact with the health system is through emergency medical services (EMS). We set out to identify patient-level and neighborhood-level factors that were associated with elapsed time in EMS. Methods and Results—A retrospective cohort study was conducted in 10 municipa...

Objectives The increasing problem in the United States with opioid dependence and overdose, often fatal, is well-recognized. As naloxone has only one clinical use— the treatment of opioid overdose—its administration by EMS personnel can serve as a surveillance indicator for opioid overdose. This study uses specific locations of EMS calls, and methods of point pattern analysis, to detect overall...