Identification of variables to decide optimal hospital for emergency patients

According to the Emergency Medical Services Act of Taiwan, rescue personnel are responsible on-site services for emergency patient. They should transport the patient from emergency site to the appropriate medical care institution in the vicinity as directed by Emergency Dispatch Center. To date, unfortunately, the criteria to decide appropriate medical care institution for emergency patient are not very clear. Generally, Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) lack the knowledge like variables to refer and prioritize variables while deciding an optimal hospital for emergency patient. The aim of this research is to study what variables can be used as reference by EMT to make decision and to create a computational model to direct the emergency patients to most appropriate hospital. The main purpose of this study is to assist with emergency ambulance resources management, and generate a mathematical model which is used in emergency medical services or a large number patients or big accident was happened, To identify variable with significant role in decision making, we designed a questionnaire consisted of three parts: i) The first part was intended to know if rescue personnel' expertise and emergency hospitalization form can help EMTs to make a better decision; ii) The second part was to identify variables which indicates the degree of seriousness from emergency hospitalization form; iii) The third part was to find the roles of logistics, health care resources and other factors to decide target hospital for emergency patients. The questionnaire was distributed to 54 EMTs in Taipei City and we got 46 usable responses, the Cronbach-a of this questionnaire were 94%. As a result we found that 1. EMTs do understand their work well, but they do not know distribution of medical resources in Service radius of responsibility. 2. They are very clear how to evaluate degree of seriousness, but they are doubtful if age should be considered. 3. They agree that travel time not only should be criteria to decide target hospital but also resource available should be taken into consideration.