Ambulance Response Times in Developing Emergency Health Care Systems

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2006 in the subject Health Science, grade: A, Andrey Jackson University (American College for Prehospital Medicine), course: Emergency Medical Services, language: English, abstract: Dispatcher training can improve ambulance response times in emergency medical service (EMS) systems in low income countries. Emergency health care systems are of increasing concern in international healthcare developments and the global fight against the burdens of disease. Studies show that emergency health care improvements in developing countries should focus on ambulance response. Low-cost changes including emergency medical dispatch training in developing urban emergency health care systems can improve ambulance response times. Concerns about focusing on ambulance response time as a single indicator are addressed by showing a case sensitive approach for developing emergency health care systems that in return can identify ambulance response as main indicator for a particular system. This approach has been chosen for the subject of study, the Osh Ambulance Service, a municipal EMS in Kyrgyzstan. This particular service, the implemented research, the study design and, the data analysis are presented. The data show that there has been a change from an average response time of 23, 18 minutes to 20, 15 minutes. This data is statistically significant and indicates that the implemented changes, despite severe challenges, likely have an effect, but it is unclear if this change will have a large clinical impact. Further research on emergency medical dispatch and emergency medical response in low- and middle- income countries is encouraged. With increased opportunities and further globalization emergency health care professionals could play a greater role in research and development of emergency medical service systems in resource-limited countries.