United States Department of Transportation
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Traffic Tech: The 2016 Motor Vehicle Occupant Safety Survey: Emergency Medical Services
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2020-01-01
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Series: NHTSA BSR Traffic Tech
[PDF-176.17 KB]
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Alternative Title:Traffic Tech, Technology Transfer Series. Report No. DOT HS 812 870
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Edition:Traffic Tech
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Abstract:Emergency medical services (EMS) play a crucial role in traffic safety: In the United States, approximately one-third of all EMS responses for patients with an injury were motorvehicle- crash-related in the period from 2012 to 2016 (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2019). According to the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS), during the same period, two out of every five people killed in motor vehicle crashes (MVCs) were alive at the scene of the crash. For this group of crash victims, receiving care from EMS clinicians may be the difference between life and death. Strengthening trauma systems may also prevent traffic deaths; a 2019 study documented that 13 percent of MVC fatalities in a sample of over 2,000 counties may have been prevented if EMS response times were shorter (Byrne et al., 2019). By providing optimal emergency care and field trauma triage to route a crash victim to the appropriate facility for care, EMS clinicians can prevent many traffic injuries from becoming fatal. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has supported comprehensive national EMS system development for more than 50 years. NHTSA’s Office of EMS provides Federal leadership to improve prehospital emergency medical care, including promoting countermeasures that mitigate MVC injuries, such as field trauma triage protocols and evidence-based guidelines for prehospital care. NHTSA has also supported the collection of timely and accurate EMS data to improve patient outcomes and EMS systems. Future efforts to link EMS data to FARS, hospital, and/or other data on patient outcomes may provide valuable insight into the impact of EMS care on MVC-related morbidity and mortality and help save lives (Cherry et al., 2018).
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