Heart & lung : the journal of critical care
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Multicenter Study
Community trends in the use and characteristics of persons with acute myocardial infarction who are transported by emergency medical services.
Limited data exist on recent trends in ambulance use and factors associated with ambulance use in patients hospitalized with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), particularly from the more generalizable perspective of a community-wide investigation. This population-based prospective epidemiologic study describes the decade-long trends (1997-2007) in the use of emergency medical services (EMS) by residents of the Worcester, Massachusetts, metropolitan area who are hospitalized for AMI and the characteristics of patients with AMI who are transported to the hospital by EMS (n = 3789) compared with those transported by other means (n = 1505). ⋯ Our findings provide encouragement for the use of EMS in residents of a large central New England community hospitalized with AMI. Despite increasing trends in ambulance use, more research is needed to explore the reasons why patients with AMI do not use EMS in the setting of an acute cardiac emergency.