Statewide Ambulance Coverage of a Mixed Region of Urban, Rural and Frontier under Travel Time Catchment Areas

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 import...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of environmental research and public health 2021-03, Vol.18 (5), p.2638
Main Authors: Lee, EunSu, McDonald, Melanie, O'Neill, Erin, Montgomery, William
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ambulances
Case studies
Catchment areas
Census
Centroids
Driving ability
Emergency communications systems
Emergency Medical Services
Emergency preparedness
Emergency vehicles
Geographic Information Systems
Humans
Literature reviews
Population density
Public health
Quality of service
Regions
Response time
Rural areas
Rural Population
Traffic congestion
Transportation networks
Travel
Travel time
Urban areas
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1660-4601
1661-7827
1660-4601
DOI:10.3390/ijerph18052638