OBJECTIVE To describe and compare characteristics and outcomes of patients who arrive by ambulance to the ED. We aimed to (i) compare patients with a delayed ambulance offload time (AOT) >30 min with those who were not delayed; and (ii) identify predictors of an ED length of stay (LOS) of >4 h for ambulance-arriving patients. METHODS A retrospective, multi-site cohort study was undertaken in ...

BACKGROUND Stroke is a very time-sensitive pathology, and many new solutions target the optimization of prehospital stroke care to improve the stroke management process. In-ambulance telemedicine, defined by live bidirectional audio-video between a patient and a neurologist in a moving ambulance and the automated transfer of vital parameters, is a promising new approach to speed up and improve ...

Results: Ten thousand three hundred one adult, non–trauma-system ED patients arrived by ambulance in 2002 and 2003, with average hospital revenues of $4,492. Each hour spent on diversion was associated with $1,086 (95% confidence interval $611 to $1,461) in forgone hospital revenues from ambulance patients. In August 2002, the study hospital increased its staffed ICU beds from 47 to 67, and div...

OBJECTIVES Alternative response schemes for emergency calls are being set up by many UK ambulance services. The barriers to such developments from the perspective of ambulance service staff have not been formally investigated. The aims of this study are to identify attitudes and barriers to the development of alternative response schemes and ways of easing the transition as they are implemented...

Ambulance vehicles are a unique passenger environment with complex crashworthiness and occupant protection issues, eg. occupants in various orientations, unique human factors aspects and an array of aftermarket interior modifications. In the USA, ambulance vehicle occupant protection, crashworthiness and safety testing lags 30 years behind current general automotive safety technology. This pape...

BACKGROUND Prehospital management of gunshot-wounded (GW) patients influences injury-induced morbidity and mortality. OBJECTIVES To evaluate prehospital management to GW patients emphasizing the protocol of patient transfer to appropriate centers. PATIENTS AND METHODS This prospective study, included all GW patients referred to four major, level-I hospitals in Mashhad, Iran. We evaluated de...

BACKGROUND There are three different types of ambulance systems, all of which can manage the same secondary intensive care patient transport mission: road ambulance, rotor-wing ambulance, and fixed-wing ambulance. We hypothesized that costs for specific transport distances would differ between systems. We aimed to analyze distances and observed times for ambulance intensive care secondary trans...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to examine the quality of handover of patients in the resuscitation room by describing the current perceptions of medical and ambulance staff. METHODS This was a descriptive survey using two anonymous questionnaires to gauge current opinion, one designed for medical staff and the other for ambulance staff. Questionnaires were distributed to medical staff i...

OBJECTIVE To assess the safety of nurses and paramedics offering telephone assessment, triage, and advice as an alternative to immediate ambulance dispatch for emergency ambulance service callers classified by lay call takers as presenting with "non-serious" problems (category C calls). DESIGN Data for this study were collected as part of a pragmatic randomised controlled trial reported elsew...

Objective The aim of the present study was to describe the Ambulance Victoria (AV) secondary telephone triage service, called the Referral Service (RS), for low-priority patients calling triple zero. This service provides alternatives to ambulance dispatch, such as doctor or nurse home visits. Methods A descriptive epidemiological review of all the cases managed between 2009 and 2012 was conduc...