Whenever we experience medical emergencies or accidents, we have a sense of security knowing that a single call can send an ambulance our way. At least that’s what we would expect. But ambulance services don’t always arrive quickly, which is an alarming fact, especially for time-critical illnesses or injuries.
A recent news report showed that a seriously ill patient waited up to one hour for an ambulance to arrive—and this incident happens to one in 16 ambulance calls. There is an apparent need to improve the response times of ambulances. The lives of the patients depend on it. Here are some tips on how ambulances can respond quicker.
Formulation of deployment plans
If ambulances and their drivers were to wait for a call in the hospital’s staff lounge, it’s bound to take them longer to respond to critical emergencies. What hospital administrations should do is to form deployment plans for ambulance services.
Deployment plans should consider historical demand. Analyzing when and where cases were most likely to happen will enable healthcare facilities to predict the trend of emergency calls. Hence, they will be able to pinpoint areas to station their ambulance staff so that they can respond quicker and more efficiently.
Effective communication
Communication is crucial when it comes to healthcare facilities. Especially if the ambulance staff is stationed in communities and neighborhoods, they need to have a medium to communicate with the head office. This will enable the deployment teams to assign the calls to the nearest ambulance immediately.
Health care administrations must heavily invest in mediums of effective communication, such as instant messaging, radios, and coordination platforms like Julota.com. All these will help call-receiving staff reach and coordinate better with ambulances on site.
Management of staff
The demand for emergency medical services often supersedes the availability of ambulances and staff. Also, not all calls requesting ambulance services are time-critical emergencies. Some callers would report mild chest pain, while others are in more critical condition.
However, ambulances cannot discount the reported health conditions and simply neglect those they think are not time-critical. They have to respond to every call quickly. The best way for healthcare administrations to meet demand is to manage their resources. They must ensure that there are enough people and vehicles on duty every day. This can be done by creating better policies for vacation leaves and training, creating varying shift lengths, and reviewing rosters periodically.
Performance Reports
Introducing new procedures and strategies won’t always go seamlessly. Chances are, there will be issues that were unforeseen during the planning stage. Hence, the need for directors and senior staff members to check on the performance of their team.
As much as possible, there should be daily or weekly briefings conducted to discuss and determine the performance of the staff. This will enable the healthcare facility to pinpoint problems immediately and create rapid solutions for them.
Hospital administrations are expected to provide rapid and effective healthcare services to the general public. But admittedly, it’s not that simple for them to meet the influx of calls requesting for the deployment of ambulances. They need to streamline their operations and devise procedures to improve their response times and deliver better services to the public.