Emergency medical services, 1979.

Abstract

Improved patient care can result from changes in the organization and delivery of care as well as from new drugs and surgical techniques. Witness, for example, the dramatic changes that have occurred in the delivery of emergency medical services over the past five years.HistoryIn 1966, the National Academy of Sciences published its landmark study, "Accidental Death and Disability: The neglected disease of modern society."1 The study labeled this "neglected epidemic" the leading cause of death in children and young adults and the nation's most important environmental health problem. Although the academy focused attention on failures in the civilian . . .