National Characteristics of Emergency Medical Services in Frontier and Remote Areas.
National Characteristics of Emergency Medical Services in Frontier and Remote Areas.
Prehosp Emerg Care. 2016 Jan 25;:1-9
Authors: Mueller LR, Donnelly JP, Jacobson KE, Carlson JN, Mann NC, Wang HE
Abstract
Although much is known about EMS care in urban, suburban, and rural settings, only limited national data describe EMS care in isolated and sparsely populated frontier regions. We sought to describe the national characteristics and outcomes of EMS care provided in frontier and remote (FAR) areas in the continental United States (US). We performed a cross-sectional analysis of the 2012 National Emergency Medical Services Information System (NEMSIS) data set, encompassing EMS response data from 40 States. We linked the NEMSIS dataset with Economic Research Service-identified FAR areas, defined as a ZIP Code >60 minutes driving time to an urban center with >50,000 persons. We excluded EMS responses resulting in intercepts, standbys, inter-facility transports, and medical transports. Using odds ratios, t-tests and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test, we compared patient demographics, response characteristics (location type, level of care), clinical impressions, and on-scene death between EMS responses in FAR and non-FAR areas. There were 15,005,588 EMS responses, including 983,286 (7.0%) in FAR and 14,025,302 (93.0%) in non-FAR areas. FAR and non-FAR EMS events exhibited similar median response 5 [IQR 3-10] vs. 5 [3-8] min), scene (14 [10...
Source: Rural Remote Health - Category: Rural Health Authors: Mueller LR, Donnelly JP, Jacobson KE, Carlson JN, Mann NC, Wang HE Tags: Prehosp Emerg Care Source Type: research