15 Minutes or Less: Does the Ambulance Response Time (ART) Has Impact on Patient's Outcome?

Background Ambulance response time is one of the key performance indexes set by the Ministry of Health Malaysia, in which the response time must be less than 15 minutes in priority one cases. The correlation of ART and patient's outcomes has never been assessed before in Malaysian setting.  

Objective  The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of ART and patient's outcomes in Kelantan, Malaysia.    Methods: This was a single centre study conducted in Kota Bharu Kelantan with an Emergency Medical System serving 347,673 population of various races, age, and gender. Patients included were coordinated by Medical Emergency Call Centre who received call from Malaysian Emergency Response Services (MERS) 999 or direct line. Patients must meet Delta and Echo classification using Medical Priority Dispatch System for priority one cases with age more or equal to 18 years. Data collection was done from November 2019 to March 2020. Patient outcomes were analysed using IBM SPSS version 25 in terms of mortality, morbidity, and the length of stay (LOS). 

Results A total of 175 ambulance calls were recorded during the study period in which the ambulances could reach 141 (80.6%) of patients within 15 minutes or less. The remains 34 (19.4%) patients were responded in more than 15 minutes. Association between ART and mortality and morbidity were not significant with p-value=0.746 and p-value=0.749. Medians for the LOS among admitted patients were the same (four days).  

Conclusion This study showed that there are no significant correlations between ART (less or equal to 15 minutes) and patient outcomes.     

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