Urgent calls--prehospital response time in Vestfold and Troms in 2001

Targeted emergency medical responses with minimum time loss require a well organized emergency medical system (EMS). We studied time consumption from emergency call reception to the arrival of the ambulance unit in two dispatch centres serving two demographically different Norwegian regions. We analysed 5004 emergency "code red" calls during 2001 processed by an EMS serving 367 000 inhabitants in 28 mixed urban/rural municipalities in Vestfold and Troms counties. Dispatch centre process time, ambulance (ground, air or boat) response time and total access times were measured. Total pre-hospital access time from call reception to arrival of ambulance to patient were considerably longer than the suggested national goals, which were only met in two rural areas out of the 28 municipalities studied. Median pre-hospital response time was 10 minutes in both regions. Within 12 minutes from the emergency call, 62.9% of the population in Vestfold and 59.8% in Troms were reached by ambulance. National standards for pre-hospital response times in medical emergencies are neither met in densely populated cities, nor in less populated rural areas.