Ambulance service operational improvement
Since the start of industrialisation in the beginning of the 20th century, processes and technology have evolved drastically. Technology that had been developed for a specific application was found to open new horizons in other domains. A good example is the use of sonar technology on military submarines which eventually found medical applications in medical imaging (Oakley, 1986). The paramedic profession is still considered to be a relatively young profession, and although the clinical scope of practice of ambulance staff has widened there have been few noticeable and significant changes in the way ambulance services operate as public service providers. There is, however, great variation in the way pre-hospital emergency care provision is delivered and organised from country to country due, for example, to historical, cultural, financial, and geographical factors.
Other industries are significantly more driven by profit, hence efficiency and reliability are aspects that have a direct and measurable financial impact, which acts as a driver for further developments. In healthcare it is a different story and parallels can be drawn differentiating the safety aspects of that particular industry in comparison to the rigorous safety measures imposed in other high risk domains such as the nuclear, petroleum, oil, and aviation industries (Hudson, 2003). Such measures have an undeniable significant cost but the expected indirect returns are even more substantial. So what is happening with ambulance services? Communication and transport have greatly improved with call centres, radios, smart phones (Bradley et al, 2012), physiological telemetry systems (Kim et al, 2011), Global Positioning Systems (GPS) (Liao, 2003; Satyanarayana et al, 2012; Kale and Dhok, 2013), and better adapted vehicles allowing rescue in diverse environments and situations (See Figures 1, 2and3), but what else could we improve in ambulance services by adopting processes and technologies from other industries?
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