Response time in the emergency services. Systematic review.

Eric Lucas Dos Santos Cabral,Aldo Cunha Medeiros,Danylo De Araújo Viana,Wilkson Ricardo Silva Castro,Ricardo Pires De Souza,Davidson Rogério De Medeiros Florentino,Irami Araújo-Filho,João Florêncio Da Costa Junior,Amália Cinthia Meneses Rêgo

doi:10.1590/s0102-865020180120000009

Eric Lucas Dos Santos Cabral, Aldo Cunha Medeiros + Show 7 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1590/s0102-865020180120000009

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Abstract

The growth of the urban population raises concern about municipal public managers in the sense of providing emergency medical services (EMS) that are aligned with the needs of prehospital emergency medical care demanded by the population. The literature review aims at presenting the response time of emergency medical services in several parts of the world and discussing some 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 study will also show that in some of the consulted articles, authors suggest to EMS recommendations for decreasing the response time using simulations, heuristics and metaheuristics. Response time is a basic indicator of emergency medical services, in such a way that researchers use the descriptive statistics to evaluate this parameter. Europe and the USA outstand in the publication of studies that present this information. Some articles use stochastic and mathematical methods to suggest models that simulate scenarios of response time reduction and suggest such proposals to the local EMS. Countries in which the response time was identified have a high index of human development and life expectancy between 74.7 and 83.7 years.

Highlights

Growth of the urban population raises the concern of municipal public managers in the sense of providing emergency medical care services that are aligned with the needs of prehospital emergency medical care demanded by the population
According to the articles listed, an international concern is observed in the measurement and optimization of response time in attending emergency occurrences that require the presence of qualified medical staff[15-17]
Other study will make basic statistical descriptions related to the emergency medical services (EMS), and make recommendations that will influence the performance of routine operations impacting, in particular, the service response time[21-23]

Summary

Introduction

Growth of the urban population raises the concern of municipal public managers in the sense of providing emergency medical care services that are aligned with the needs of prehospital emergency medical care demanded by the population. With population growth in large cities, it is natural that there is a significant increase in the number of traffic accidents and other serious occurrences such as heart attack, drowning, drilling by firearm and disasters (floods, landslides, earthquakes, for example). This increase in such occurrences is reflected in the proportional growth in costs of health systems worldwide. In 2010 prognoses show that this value reached 17.6%. Among these health expenditures, 5 to 10% are with emergencies[2,3]. The traffic density in many metropolitan areas of the world causes severe car congestion[4]

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