ABSTRACTS
Customer Perception of Lights and Siren UseAuthor: Whitney Morgan | | Associate Authors: Christopher Cunningham | Jeramie Davidson | Angela Cornelius | Matt Zavadsky
Introduction Concern surrounding the efficacy and safety of lights and siren use during EMS vehicle operations has increased in recent years. Issues with increased risk for both the crew and general population, with little benefit for the patient, have been argued as reasons to discontinue or limit use. To our knowledge, there have not been studies reflecting the customer perception of timeliness and unit response time. To fill this gap, we performed an IRB-exempt retrospective analysis on customer experience surveys conducted by a third party for Medstar Mobile Healthcare in Fort Worth, Texas, and the ambulance response time data for the same period. Methods A twenty-four question, 5-point Likert scale survey was distributed to customers from May 8, 2013, to April 3, 2022 via postal mail (2013-2017), phone (2017-2021), and currently an online survey. 4,975 customer experience surveys were stratified with response time data for the period of January 1, 2018 to December 31,2021. Although these surveys were de-identified, the data did contain response identifiable fields that allowed for a specific crosswalk with the experience rating and ambulance response time. These surveys are performed by a third party and patients are selected at random to complete them. The survey responses were reduced to analyze the consumer response to “extent to which the ambulance arrived in a timely manner.” The response data was derived from the computer-aided dispatch database. Response time was calculated as first keystroke time for dispatch to unit arrival on scene. The survey showed normal distribution. Correlation analysis was performed utilizing the Kendall Correlation Coefficient. Results Average customer ranking of timeliness of ambulance arrival was 4.80 out of 5. We also looked at how acuity affected the customer perception; 1935 of these responses were given Medstar’s highest priority level (priority 1). The average ranking was 4.75. Overall, the increase in response time did not seem to have direct impact on the customer perception of timeliness. This was confirmed utilizing the correlation coefficient with a score of –0.01437. Conclusion Customer perception of timeliness of ambulance arrival and the time it takes for the ambulance to arrive have no strong correlation.
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