Rural-dwelling older adults experience unique challenges related to accessing medical and social services. This article describes the development, implementation, and experience of a novel, community-based program to identify rural-dwelling older adults with unmet medical and social needs that leveraged the existing emergency medical services (EMS) system. The program specifically included geri...

NC Med J July/August 2007, Volume 68, Number 4 ike other organizations, emergency medical services (EMS) systems have revenues and expenses. The unpredictability of calls and the oftentimes inefficient nature of EMS operations make EMS management and financing difficult. Annually, EMS costs patients, insurers, and the federal government billions of dollars. In fiscal year 2002, Medicare spent $...

OBJECTIVES Societal aging is expected to impact the use of emergency medical services (EMS). Older adults are known as high users of EMS. Our primary objective was to quantify the rate of EMS use by older adults in a Canadian provincial EMS system. Our secondary objective was to compare those transported to those not transported. METHODS We analysed data from a provincial EMS database for eme...

The aim of this study was to analyze the neuromuscular mechanisms involved in the torque decrease induced by submaximal electromyostimulation (EMS) of the quadriceps muscle. It was hypothesized that torque decrease after EMS would reflect the fatigability of the activated motor units (MUs), but also a reduction in the number of MUs recruited as a result of changes in axonal excitability thresho...

By defi nition, the term volunteer means “without pay.” Thus, a volunteer EMS system is one in which the EMS personnel are not paid.1 There are a multitude of different types and combinations of EMS systems as noted by both the 2006 Institute of Medicine report and the EMS Agenda for the Future.2,3,4 The issues associated with each EMS system can be signifi cantly different between urban and ru...

Emergency medical services (EMS) is an organised system designed to transport sick or injured patients to the hospital. Though EMS system configurations can be quite varied in design depending on locale, we provide an overview of EMS as it has evolved and is currently modelled in the US. We outline the history of EMS in the US, including the major events and legislation that shaped the current ...

Eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome (EMS) is a newly described syndrome associated with use of L-tryptophan. A neuropathy with features of axonal degeneration has also been described in conjunction with EMS. Demyelinating polyneuropathy is not a well recognised association of the syndrome. The two patients with EMS reported presented with profound weakness and sensory loss and were found to have clin...

Calculating the cost of an emergency medical services (EMS) system using a standardized method is important for determining the value of EMS. This article describes the development of a methodology for calculating the cost of an EMS system to its community. This includes a tool for calculating the cost of EMS (the "cost workbook") and detailed directions for determining cost (the "cost guide")....