What is typically the outcome measured by EMS patient outcomes?

The measurement of long-term survival rates is a critical outcome for evaluating the effectiveness of emergency medical services (EMS) interventions. This outcome provides insights into how well EMS is performing in terms of influencing patient prognoses after they have received care in the pre-hospital setting and subsequent treatment at the hospital.

Long-term survival rates reflect not only the immediate impact of EMS interventions but also the broader implications of care received. For instance, if a patient is stabilized and their condition is improved during transport, they are more likely to have a better overall prognosis, which can lead to higher survival rates months or years post-incident.

In contrast, while hospital readmission rates may provide some insight into the quality of care, they are more directly related to post-hospital care and do not necessarily reflect the initial EMS intervention's effectiveness. Patient satisfaction feedback is valuable for understanding patient perspectives but does not measure clinical outcomes directly. Emergency response times are important for assessing systemic efficiency and can influence patient outcomes, but they do not themselves act as a direct measure of patient outcomes in terms of survival.