EMS Cost Analysis Project (EMSCAP)
The EMS Cost Analysis Project is a collaboration between the National Association of State EMS Officials (NASEMSO) and E. Brooke Lerner, Graham Nichol, Daniel Spaite, Herbert Garrison, and Ronald Maio). It is a continuation of the Emergency Medical Services Outcomes Project (EMSOP), a recently completed, 5 year National Highway Safety Administration (NHTSA) project (DTNH22-96-H-05245) intended to support and facilitate emergency medical services (EMS) outcomes research and evaluation.
Objective
The objective of the EMS Cost Analysis Project is to create a comprehensive framework that would allow users to determine the cost of providing pre-hospital emergency care from a societal prospective.
Goals
The project goals are:
To synthesize the state of the art/science of economic evaluation and it’s relevance to EMS research by completing a systematic review of literature in regard to EMS economic evaluation studies.
To develop a conceptual framework for applying cost analysis in EMS research.
To develop a cost workbook that could be used by communities to calculate the cost of EMS in their community.
Status
The results from the literature search were presented in oral format at the International Interdisciplinary Conference on Emergencies held June 26-30, 2005, in Montreal, Canada.
A paper on the literature search was published in Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Lerner EB, Maio RF, Garrison HG, Spaite DW, Nichol G: Economic Value of Prehospital Emergency Care: A Structured Literature Review. Annals of Emergency Medicine 2006; 47 (6): 515-2.
A cost framework was developed and presented along with general EMSOP information at the 11th International Conference on Emergency Medicine, held June 3-7, 2006 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
A paper on the cost framework was published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Lerner EB, Nichol G, Spaite DW, Garrison HG, Maio RF: A Comprehensive Framework for Determining the Cost of an Emergency Medical Services System. Annals of Emergency Medicine; Ann Emerg Med. 2007;49:304-313.
A workbook for calculating EMS system costs has been developed, and three sites are currently in the process of pilot testing the workbook.