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Review
. 2024 Apr 4:18:100627.
doi: 10.1016/j.resplu.2024.100627. eCollection 2024 Jun.

Pakistan's Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system & out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA): A narrative review of an EMS system of a low middle income country in context of OHCA

Mirza Noor Ali Baig  1   2 , Nadeemullah Khan  1 , Rizwan Naseer  3 , Shahnaz Akhter  3 , Abid Jalaluddin Shaikh  4 , Junaid Abdul Razzak  2
Affiliations
Review

Pakistan's Emergency Medical Services (EMS) system & out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA): A narrative review of an EMS system of a low middle income country in context of OHCA

Mirza Noor Ali Baig et al. Resusc Plus. .

Abstract

Pakistan's Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are a critical component of its healthcare system, providing pre-hospital emergency care across a nation with over 220 million people. This article explores the evolutionary journey of Pakistan's EMS, highlighting both the challenges it faces and the strides it has made, with a specific emphasis on patients experiencing out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). To extract relevant information, we searched MEDLINE & Embase data bases using MeSH terms "Emergency Medical Services" OR "EMS" AND "Out-of-Hospital-Cardiac-Arrest" OR "OHCA" AND "Pakistan". In addition, we also retrieved information from the EMS leadership in Pakistan through e-mails. We delve into the significance of key performance indicators for OHCA, advocate for the establishment of OHCA registries to improve patient outcomes, address regional disparities in pre-hospital care, and acknowledge the gradual progress of the EMS system.

Keywords: Emergency Medical Services (EMS); Out-of-hospital-cardiac-arrest (OHCA).

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Staffing System of the Punjab Emergency Services Department.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
The Emergency Care Integration Framework.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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