Hanover County Improves Its Response to Emergency Medical 911 Patients

Laura A. McLay () and Henri Moore ()
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Laura A. McLay: Department of Statistical Sciences and Operations Research, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23284
Henri Moore: Hanover County Fire and EMS, Hanover County, Virginia 23069

Interfaces, 2012, vol. 42, issue 4, 380-394

Abstract: Meeting emergency medical service (EMS) performance measure benchmarks for patient response times is an important factor in saving patient lives. Hanover County Fire and EMS in Virginia initiated a quick-response vehicle (QRV) pilot program in which it replaced some of its ambulances and fire engines with three sport utility vehicles to more effectively coordinate patient response. The decision to use the QRVs is based on an analysis provided by analytical models that estimate the potential improvements in Hanover County's performance measure of responding to patients within nine minutes of dispatch. We use data collected over two years to evaluate the impact of the QRV pilot program. The results report significant improvements to patient response times without increasing personnel costs. When using QRVs, Hanover County Fire and EMS responded to an additional 4.9 percent of high-priority patients within nine minutes compared to its prior operations, which did not use QRVs. The faster response times occurred across all patients, which is an important factor in improving patient survival rates for the most critical classes of patients who are experiencing life-threatening health issues such as cardiac arrest.

Keywords: emergency medical services; public services; nonparametric statistical methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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