Ambulance Response in Eight Minutes or Less: Are Comorbidities a Factor

Abstract

A recommended emergency medical services ambulance response time to a medical emergency is within eight minutes for at least 90% of calls. This study aimed to evaluate scene times for rural education and outreach to improve the quality of trauma care. This is a single-center study of Trauma Registry data from July 1, 2016 to February 28, 2022. The inclusion criteria were based upon age (≥18 years). A logistic regression was performed to identify predictor variables on the likelihood that an adult trauma patient will experience scene times greater than eight minutes. 19 321 patients were included in the analysis; 7233 (37%) experienced an elapsed scene time within eight minutes. This research identified an opportunity to improve rural trauma team response time, which is only reaching 37% of the patient population within eight minutes. Prehospital cardiac arrest and unique pre-existing comorbidities may play a role in extended response times by EMS.