Management Department, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ 07311, USA.
Health Sciences Department, New Jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ 07305, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Mar 5;18(5):2638. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18052638.
This study examines the statewide service coverage of emergency medical services (EMS) in view of public health planners, policy makers, and ambulance service managers. The study investigates the statewide service coverage in a mixed region of urban, rural, and frontier regions to address the importance of ambulance service coverage at a large scale. The study incorporated statewide road networks for ambulance travel time, census blocks for population, and backup service coverage using geographic information systems (GIS). The catchment areas were delineated by the travel time after subtracting chute time for each Census Block as an analysis zone. Using the catchment areas from the ambulance base to the centroid of Census Block, the population and land coverage were calculated. The service shortage and multiple coverage areas were identified by the catchment areas. The study found that both reducing chute time and increasing the speed of emergency vehicles at the same time was significantly more effective than improving only one of two factors. The study shows that the service is improved significantly in frontier and urban areas by increasing driving time and chute time. However, in rural areas, the improvement is marginal owing to wider distribution than urban areas and shorter threshold response time than frontier areas. The public health planners and EMS managers benefit from the study to identify underserved areas and redistribute limited public resources.
本研究旨在为公共卫生规划者、政策制定者和救护车服务管理者提供有关紧急医疗服务（EMS）全州服务覆盖范围的信息。该研究调查了混合城乡和边境地区的全州服务覆盖范围，以强调大规模救护车服务覆盖的重要性。该研究整合了全州范围内的救护车行驶时间道路网络、人口普查块和使用地理信息系统（GIS）的后备服务覆盖范围。通过从每个人口普查块减去斜槽时间来确定分析区域的时间，从而划定了集水区。使用从救护车基地到人口普查块质心的集水区，计算了人口和土地覆盖面积。通过集水区识别出服务短缺和多个覆盖区域。研究发现，同时减少斜槽时间和提高紧急车辆速度比仅改善两个因素中的一个更有效。研究表明，通过增加行驶时间和斜槽时间，在边境和城市地区服务显著改善。然而，在农村地区，由于分布范围比城市地区更广，且阈值响应时间比边境地区更短，因此改善幅度较小。公共卫生规划者和 EMS 管理者可以从这项研究中受益，以确定服务不足的地区，并重新分配有限的公共资源。
