USA Today Series Examines Disparities in Emergency Medical Services
In a three-day series titled "Six Minutes to Live or Die," USA Today examines disparities in emergency medical services in 50 cities across the United States. An 18-month investigation revealed that about 1,000 lives are "needlessly lost each year" because of "inefficiencies" in emergency services, according to USA Today. Emergency care has been improved in some areas by changing the methods used to measure response times and then making changes to the system based on response times (Davis, USA Today, 7/29). Summaries of stories in the series from yesterday and today appear below:
- "Many Lives Are Lost Across USA Because Emergency Services Fail: Turf Wars Between Ambulance, Fire Crews Cause Deadly Delays": The chances of surviving a "dire medical emergency" are largely based on the management of area emergency services, USA Today reports. Many emergency services systems are "undermined" by "turf wars," and many cities do not accurately measure performance of such services and lack the leadership to enact improvements, according to USA today (Davis, USA Today, 7/28).
- "The Method: Measure How Many Victims Leave the Hospital Alive": The article explains that the USA Today investigation used sudden cardiac arrest survival rates to measure performance because "it gives the best measure available of an emergency medical system's lifesaving performance." According to the American Heart Association, about 250,000 people die each year from cardiac arrest outside of hospitals; it is estimated that increasing the survival rate from the current 5% to 20% would save 40,000 lives per year (Davis, USA Today, 7/28).
- "Seattle: Firefighters, Medics Unite to Save Lives": Seattle has the "best lifesaving rate" among the cities surveyed because its system separates fire and ambulatory services, "meticulously" measures performance and has "strong leadership," USA Today reports (Davis, USA Today, 7/28).
- "Washington, D.C.: Slow Response, Lack of Cooperation Bring Deadly Delays": Washington, D.C., has a "dismal" record of saving emergency patients because there is "an ingrained culture of apathy and conflict between firefighters and ambulance crews," and there is a "lack of consistent leadership," according to USA Today (Davis, USA Today, 7/28).
- "How 50 Major Cities Stack Up": This online feature groups 50 U.S. cities into three tiers and provides information about cardiac emergency care for each. The first tier includes cities in which medical professionals scientifically monitor survival rates of cardiac patients, the second tier includes cities that use "imprecise" methods to monitor survival rates and the third tier features cities whose methods are unknown or undisclosed (Davis, USA Today, 7/28).
- "Doctors in Charge Rarely Call the Shots": USA Today reports that "[f]ew cities have given real authority to the doctors they hired to oversee emergency care" and that "strong oversight from medical directors with the power to make changes" is necessary to improve survival rates. The article includes a table showing the number of sudden cardiac arrest cases and potential survival rates for the nation's 100 largest cities (Davis, USA Today, 7/29).
- Reporter Robert Davis, who worked on the series while a Kaiser Family Foundation media fellow, will answer questions about the series during an online chat July 30.
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