TABLE 1

Example measures identified from systematic evidence review

CategoryMeasure
Clinical managementAccuracy of call-taker identification of different conditions (e.g. cardiac arrest, heart attack, stroke, low-urgency calls suitable for nurse advice)
Proportion of people with diabetes mellitus treated at home
Accuracy of paramedic diagnosis, for example agreement of on-scene and final hospital diagnosis
Compliance with protocols and guidelines (e.g. triage or transport protocols)
Whole systemCompleteness and accuracy of patient records
Frequency with which ambulance staff administer treatments (e.g. inserting breathing tubes, heart monitoring, oxygen therapy, defibrillation)
Proportion of all calls that receive an ambulance response with patients who are not conveyed to hospital/other health facility
Volume and nature of complaints
Patient outcomesSurvival at different time points after the event. For example, in hospital, 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, 1 year
Health/quality-of-life status
Proportion of patients left at home who have a contact with any emergency/urgent health service within 72 hours
Pain measurement and symptom relief

From: Identifying potential measures to assess ambulance service performance and quality of care

Cover of Developing new ways of measuring the quality and impact of ambulance service care: the PhOEBE mixed-methods research programme
Developing new ways of measuring the quality and impact of ambulance service care: the PhOEBE mixed-methods research programme.
Programme Grants for Applied Research, No. 7.3.
Turner J, Siriwardena AN, Coster J, et al.
Southampton (UK): NIHR Journals Library; 2019 Apr.
Copyright © Queen’s Printer and Controller of HMSO 2019. This work was produced by Turner et al. under the terms of a commissioning contract issued by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. This issue may be freely reproduced for the purposes of private research and study and extracts (or indeed, the full report) may be included in professional journals provided that suitable acknowledgement is made and the reproduction is not associated with any form of advertising. Applications for commercial reproduction should be addressed to: NIHR Journals Library, National Institute for Health Research, Evaluation, Trials and Studies Coordinating Centre, Alpha House, University of Southampton Science Park, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK.

NCBI Bookshelf. A service of the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health.