Abstract
Introduction: Rapid response, patient care and transportation remain recognised goals of the Emergency
Medical Services (EMS). Spending more time on-scene may delay the initiation of definitive care interventions.
This study focused on describing the perceptions of a sample of emergency care providers
regarding the impact of environmental, clinical and systemic factors with respect to their on-scene time
intervals.
Method: The study was descriptive and prospective in nature making use of a self-designed questionnaire.
Basic descriptive methods were used during the analysis of the participants’ responses to 16
close-ended questions. A further review of the limited narrative elicited by two open-ended questions
allowed for the reporting of additional views and opinions.
Results: Thirty-three (92%) participants agreed that extended time on-scene may negatively affect patient
outcome. Twenty-three (64%) agreed that spending longer than 20 min on-scene may be considered
excessive for medical emergencies and 28 (77%) felt the same for trauma cases. Respondents felt that
many of the environmental, clinical and systemic factors mentioned in the questionnaire do have the
potential to extend on-scene time intervals. The factors that were seen to have the greatest effect
included waiting for fire, rescue and police services, patient acuity, the use of an air ambulance, patient
extrication and multi-casualty incidents.
Discussion: There are a number of environmental, clinical and systemic factors that emergency care providers
indicate have the potential to extend on-scene time intervals. Acknowledging and attempting to
address these factors is important for EMS as limiting the time spent on-scene is not only clinically desirable
but may also lead to improved efficiency and availability of resources.