ReviewOpen access emergency medicine : OAEM2010
Response time as a sole performance indicator in EMS: Pitfalls and solutions.
Review in Open access emergency medicine : OAEM, 2010. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Association of ambulance and helicopter response times with patient survival: A systematic literature review and meta-analysis.PloS one · 2025Pooled it
- A pilot study on feasibility and hypothesis exploration: reducing on-scene length of stay of the emergency teams via ambulance dispatch teleconsultation for prehospital examination.Einstein (Sao Paulo, Brazil) · 2025Trial
- The impact of community paramedicine service on prehospital time intervals in rural Norway: a quasi-experimental study.BMC emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Modeling IN out-of-hospital emergency medical services-a scoping review of approaches and applications.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Access to emergency medical services in Beijing: integrating web mapping application programming interfaces and empirical Bayesian Kriging interpolation analysis.World journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Assessment of ambulance interventions; proposal of a performance measurement framework for healthcare improvement in EMS response to patient collapse.BMC emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Observational
- Challenges and opportunities to improve efficiency and quality of prehospital emergency care using an mHealth platform: Qualitative study in Rwanda.African journal of emergency medicine : Revue africaine de la medecine d'urgence · 2023Article
- Article
- Emergency Interhospital Transfer of Patients With ST-Segment-Elevation Myocardial Infarction: Call 9-1-1-The American Heart Association Mission: Lifeline Program.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2022Article
- Statewide Ambulance Coverage of a Mixed Region of Urban, Rural and Frontier under Travel Time Catchment Areas.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- The Impact of Experience, Length of Service, and Workplace Preparedness in Physicians' Readiness in the Response to Disasters.Journal of clinical medicine · 2020Article
- Observational
- Article
- Assessment of Key Performance Indicators of the Primary Health Care in Oman: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study.Journal of primary care & community healthObservational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Response time (RT) has been liberally used as a process indicator to assess emergency medical services (EMS) performance around the world. It is objective, quantifiable, and easily understood by the public and policymakers alike. However, its correlation to better patient outcome is yet to be established. The evidence supporting the value of using RT is mostly lacking and the little existing evidence is conflicting. There is a concern that the RT notion is dominating the professional culture of ambulance providers. Quality of patient care is becoming a secondary target to RT. Solutions to shorten RT of ambulance services have prohibitive costs and risk the safety of patients, attending crew and the public. It is time to consider patient outcome as the main standard for performance of EMS in order to meet the public expectation of accountability and openness.
Indexed as
Identifiers
27147831PMC4806820What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.