Definition
Patient Contacts: A count of each contact between EMS and a patient during an incident. A single patient contact is counted for an incident, even if multiple medical staff interact with the patient (e.g. one medic triages a patient and a second medic transports to a hospital). On the other hand, if an incident involves multiple patients, each contact with those patients is counted once. For example, a motor vehicle crash with three injured persons would be counted as one incident with three patient contacts. It is single medical interaction between EMS and a patient during the course of an incident. Some incidents may have multiple patients and other incidents may not involve any patients at all. A patient is a person who requires a medical assessment.
Patient Transport Rate: A percentage of the patients who are actually transported by EMS when all patient contacts are considered. Not every patient desires transportation to a hospital. For example a car crash involving 3 patients would result in one incident with three patient contacts and a 33% patient transport rate if two of the patients refuse to be transported to the hospital.
***Important Note: ATCEMS transitioned to a new electronic medical record system on 25 February 2019. This change will lead to some temporary inaccuracies in patient-related information as data from the new and legacy systems are integrated in our data warehouse and reporting processes. We apologize in advance for any problems this may cause.***
Why is this important?
Taking care of our citizens is the reason we exist! This is a count of how many patients we interact with. This information helps us monitor the volume of patient contacts that we are experiencing in the system and helps us project future needs.
This measure relates to our Strategic Goals for Service and Finance- S1, S2, S3, F2, and F3:
S1: To be an organization that strives to improve the lives of people in our community.
S2: To have a service delivery model that best serves the needs of our community.
S3: To be an organization that puts service before self.
F2: To be an organization that provides value to the community.
F3: To provide quality cost efficient service to the community.
Performance Measure Definition
Click here to view our strategic goals