Estimates of ambulance travel times on road networks are critical for effective ambulance base placement and real-time ambulance dispatching. We introduce new methods for estimating the distribution of travel times on each road segment in a city, using Global Positioning System (GPS) data recorded during ambulance trips. Our preferred method uses a Bayesian model of the ambulance trips and GPS ...

OBJECTIVES This study utilizes a [US] national sample of emergency medical services (EMS) professionals to explore the hypothesis that demographic and work-related characteristics are associated with involvement in ambulance crashes. METHODS In 2004, a cohort of nationally registered EMS professionals was surveyed to determine ambulance crash involvement during a 12-month period. Involvement ...

BACKGROUND Emergency management of myocardial infarction (MI) is time-critical, because improved patient outcomes are associated with reduced time from symptom onset to definitive care. Previous studies have identified that women are less likely to present with chest pain. OBJECTIVE We sought to measure the effect of sex on symptoms reported to the ambulance dispatch and ambulance times for M...

INTRODUCTION Out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) is a global health problem with low survival. Regional variation in survival has heightened interest in combining cardiac arrest registries to understand and improve OHCA outcomes. While individual OHCA registries exist in Australian and New Zealand ambulance services, until recently these registries have not been combined. The aim of this prot...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the use of emergency and non-urgent ambulance transport services by people aged 65 years and over. SETTING The study was undertaken in Queensland where the Queensland Ambulance Services (QAS) is the sole provider of emergency pre-hospital and non-urgent ambulance services for the entire state. METHODS The age and sex of 351,000 emergency and non-urgent cases treated...

BACKGROUND For stroke patients, calling an ambulance has been shown to be associated with faster times to hospital than contacting a family physician. However little is known about the impact of decisions made by family physicians on delay times for stroke patients once they have been called.We aimed to test the hypotheses that among ambulance transported stroke patients:• Factors associated wi...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the potential impact for ambulance services of telephone assessment and triage for callers who present with non-serious problems (Category C calls) as classified by ambulance service call takers. DESIGN Pragmatic controlled trial. Calls identified using priority dispatch protocols as non-serious were allocated to intervention and control groups according to time of ca...

Ambulance crashes are a significant risk to prehospital care providers, the patients they are carrying, persons in other vehicles, and pedestrians. No uniform national transportation or medical database captures all ambulance crashes in the United States. A website captures many significant ambulance crashes by collecting reports in the popular media (the website is mentioned in the introductio...

(2012) Exposure to hot and cold temperatures and ambulance attendances in Brisbane, Australia: A time series study. BMJ Open, 2(4). Notice: Changes introduced as a result of publishing processes such as copy-editing and formatting may not be reflected in this document. For a definitive version of this work, please refer to the published source: Article focus: • To examine the relationship betwe...