It is great to see a prehospital study of this size demonstrate the ability of EMS to contribute to the overall health care strategy.
As I mentioned recently, EMS needs to evolve fairly rapidly just to keep up with the speed of change that is quietly but definitely moving through the house of medicine.
In this case, the EMS system involved in the study worked on multiple fronts to reduce the number of unnecessary transports by their units, which in turn reduced the number of admissions to the local emergency departments.
These changes were implemented with relatively little cost and by using existing staffing.
The result was a gain in financial and operational efficiency — a great measure by any means.
Not all systems can implement these configuration changes. Reviewing the article, it is clear that there needs to be multidisciplinary support for the concept and an array of resources to implement and monitor.
Yet any system can take a few ideas and modify them to address their particular needs. These types of efforts can really sharpen an EMS system’s management of its local community, no matter how big or small.
