Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Stroke Transports to Hospital Destination

Chronic Disease Map Gallery

Key points

Emergency medical services transport patterns and time from dispatch to hospital arrival are important to ensure rapid treatment and reduce death and disability from stroke.

Map

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The choropleth map indicates the median transport time in minutes, with the darker blue representing longer transport times and the lighter blue representing shorter transport times. Line symbols represent whether a transport was by ground (blue) or by air (red). Medical facilities are symbolized by point data, with comprehensive stroke centers as yellow circles, acute stroke hospitals as pink circles, and nondesignated hospitals as green triangles.
EMS Stroke Transports to Hospital Destination

Data sources

Major Findings

Minnesota counties with the highest transport times for stroke in 2014 did not have a designated stroke hospital.

How the map will be used, or has been used

Understanding transport times by EMS is important for targeting strategies to improve patient outcomes for stroke based on the prehospital phase of treatment and transport.

ArcGIS 10.5

Minnesota Stroke Registry and MNSTAR ambulance data, 2014.

Ambulance services in Minnesota submit data on their transport activity. These transports were linked with confirmed stroke cases in the Minnesota Stroke Registry using SAS 9.4. The stroke scene locations and the hospital were mapped as point locations in ArcGIS. A network analysis linked the stroke scene location to the hospital destination. EMS transport times were calculated in SAS 9.4 from the ambulance run report. Median transport times per county were calculated from all linked stroke–EMS records.

Julie Hoffer, Research Scientist, Minnesota Department of Health
651-201-4527
julie.hoffer@state.mn.us

Julie Hoffer, Minnesota Department of Health. Accessed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Chronic Disease Map Gallery.

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Content Source:
National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP); About the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention