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. 2021 Oct 25;21(1):292.
doi: 10.1186/s12911-021-01658-9.

The impact of the emergency medical services (EMS) automation system on patient care process and user workflow

Faezeh Afzali  1 , Yunes Jahani  2 , Fatemeh Bagheri  1 , Reza Khajouei  3
Affiliations

The impact of the emergency medical services (EMS) automation system on patient care process and user workflow

Faezeh Afzali et al. BMC Med Inform Decis Mak. .

Abstract

Background: One of the important components of the health system is the emergency medical services (EMS) system. The EMS system was implemented at Kerman University of Medical Sciences teaching hospitals to communicate the situation of patients being transferred to the hospital by EMS and to provide facilities tailored to the patient's condition. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of the EMS system on the patient care process and the workflow of users.

Methods: The hospital information system (HIS) report was used to investigate the impact of the EMS system on the patient care process and a questionnaire was distributed among 244 participants to determine its impact on the workflow of the users. Mann-Whitney U was used to analyze HIS reports, and Chi-square was used to analyze the data collected by questionnaires.

Results: The EMS system reduced the patient's stay in hospital by an average of 3 h and 45 min. It also increased the number of patients' discharge from the emergency room to 2.2% and reduced the death rate by 1.3% (p < 0.001). Besides, 78% of physicians, 75% of nurses and 83% of technicians stated that this system has positively influenced their workflow.

Conclusions: The EMS system reduced the patient's stay in hospital and mortality, and increased the speed of patient service, readiness of users to provide patient care and the number of discharged patients. However, problems such as inappropriate technical infrastructure of the EMS system should be solved to improve patients' recovery, reduce mortality and improve user satisfaction.

Keywords: Emergency medical services; Patient care process; User; Workflow.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
An illustration of the user workflow before and after the implementation of the EMS system
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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