Summary: Response time in the emergency services. Systematic review
Response time of emergency can be highly affected by the growth of population. This summary aims at discussing such occurrence as well as the factors that interfere in the result of this indicator such as GDP (Gross Domestic Product) percentage spent on health and life expectancy of countries. The summary will also report the authors’ suggestions and recommendations for decreasing the response time using simulations, heuristics and metaheuristics.
Emergency medical service and the need of prehospital emergency care demanded by the population can be affected by the demographic expansion. Indeed, population growth can cause traffic accidents as well as other disasters and incidents like drowning. Moreover, it can also bring to a lack of resources.
The response time of emergency service is important since it is considered as the main aspect for the success of the prehospital care and therefore, for the survival of the victims. Consequently, the response time is described as the “time between notification of an occurrence and the ambulance arrival on the scene”[1]. According to the WHO, less than 8 minutes correspond to the perfect reaction time. While other studies[2] also take into consideration secondary outcomes, “which include changes in other main ambulance time metrics such as average ambulance response interval (time from ambulance dispatch to arrival on the scene) and overall out-of-service interval (the amount of time that an ambulance is not available to respond to another incident)”.[3]
Naturally, the number of minutes change according to the population density which influences the average response time. Notably, in Vienna (Austria) the average response time that was recorded in 2015 was 15 minutes while in Belo Horizonte (Brazil) the average response time in 2010 was about 21 minutes. In general, based on the standards determined by the US EMS Act, the 95% of the emergency requests should be served within 10 min in urban areas and within 30 min in rural areas. Similarly, other regulations in London or in Montreal have set the same standards. The results conducted on this topic have highlighted that the optimisation and good performance of the response time highly depends on the presence of qualified medical staff. Important factors that contribute to the improvement of performance, is the continuing research and the assessment carried out by research centres in providing information and making recommendations on how response time could be improved. In this context, the methods used to conduct such analysis have been those of simulation, algorithms which allow to consider different scenarios, and data analysis through descriptive statistics.
Finally, the growing interest of health institutions in several countries in responding urgently to the quantification of response time has been demonstrated. Consequently, it is necessary to ensure a continuing development of other studies with the aim to understand all the aspects linked to the response time.
Note: This short summary is based on the paper Response time in the emergency services. Systematic review
Author: Cabral, Eric & Castro, Wilkson & Florentino, Davidson & Viana, Danylo & Costa, Joao & Souza, Ricardo & Rêgo, Amália & Araújo-Filho, Irami & Medeiros, Aldo
Keywords
Emergency Medical Services. Ambulances. Emergency Responders
Sources
[1] Cabral, Eric & Castro, Wilkson & Florentino, Davidson & Viana, Danylo & Costa, Joao & Souza, Ricardo & Rêgo, Amália & Araújo-Filho, Irami & Medeiros, Aldo. (2018). Response time in the emergency services. Systematic review. Acta Cirurgica Brasileira.
[2] Lawner et al.
[3] Cabral, Eric & Castro, Wilkson & Florentino, Davidson & Viana, Danylo & Costa, Joao & Souza, Ricardo & Rêgo, Amália & Araújo-Filho, Irami & Medeiros, Aldo. (2018). Response time in the emergency services. Systematic review. Acta Cirurgica Brasileira.