AMBULANCE-BASED
Computer System
Improves Emergency Medical Service in Rural Arizona

Vital information on board: Lt. Michael Burns, FF/CEP, with the Tubac Fire District, tests the ambulance-based computer system.
   
An ambulance-based computer system developed by the Arizona Emergency Medicine Research Center (AEMRC) at The University of Arizona is bringing a vital health communication link to rural Arizona.

"The system is an important step to improve the delivery of quality pre-hospital care by emergency medical services (EMS) in rural Arizona and is the first of its kind in the state," says Harvey Meislin, M.D., director of AEMRC.

"Using ambulance-based lap-top computers, EMS personnel collect detailed patient information that will help identify the frequency and types of emergency health problems and provide a mechanism to evaluate the care of rural Arizona EMS patients."

Pilot study sites for the system included Nogales, Page, Rio Rico and Tubac. The system already is working in ambulances from the Rio Rico and Tubac Fire Departments.

The Phoenix-based Flinn Foundation, a private grant-making organization that supports non-profit organizations in Arizona in the health care field, provided $483,181 for the three-year project to develop the ambulance-based computer system. The project involved the cooperative efforts of AEMRC; St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix; the Arizona Department of Health Services, Office of Emergency Medical Services; and the Arizona Health Sciences Center Division of Biomedical Communications.

The project developed both data collection software and several Continuing Medical Education (CME) CD-ROM modules, including one for "Children With Special Health Care Needs," as well as airway management and obstetrics modules. Based on the pre-hospital data collected, new CME programs will be developed and current programs improved. Easier access for rural EMS providers to the same CME opportunities as their urban counterparts will help enhance patient outcomes in rural communities.

Rural Arizona - and rural areas throughout the United States - are severely disadvantaged in obtaining emergency health care. Death rates from injury in rural Arizona are much higher than metropolitan areas for a number of reasons, including longer response times for ambulances due to geographic barriers and distance; a shortage of EMS providers; sparse populations that don't offer EMS providers sufficient exposure to a variety of patient scenarios to maintain skills; and rural EMS agencies' lack of funding for their EMS providers to attend CME courses that are only available in distant metropolitan areas.

-By Jean Spinelli

 

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