Air ambulance outcome measures using Institutes of Medicine and Donabedian quality frameworks: protocol for a systematic scoping review

• Published in: Systematic reviews Vol. 9; no. 1; pp. 72 - 8
• Main Authors: Edwards, Kristin H, FitzGerald, Gerard, Franklin, Richard C, Edwards, Mark Terrell
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England BioMed Central 02-04-2020; BMC
• Subjects: Air ambulance; Air Ambulances; Ambulance services; Business metrics; Civil aviation; Cross-Sectional Studies; Delivery of Health Care; Donabedian; Emergency medical care; Emergency system; Funding; Health care; Health services; Humans; Institutes of Medicine; Outcome Assessment, Health Care; Outcome measures; Protocol; Quality of care; Review Literature as Topic; Service delivery; Socioeconomic factors; Systematic review; Systematic Reviews as Topic; United States; United States; Service delivery; Quality framework; Donabedian; Air ambulance; Outcome measures; Emergency system; Institutes of Medicine
• ISSN: 2046-4053; 2046-4053
• DOI: 10.1186/s13643-020-01316-7

Dedicated air ambulance services provide a vital link for critically ill and injured patients to higher levels of care. The recent developments of pre-hospital and retrieval medicine create an opportunity for air ambulance providers and policy-makers to utilize a dashboard of quality performance measures to assess service performance. The objective of this scoping systematic review will be to identify and evaluate the range of air ambulance outcome measures reported in the literature and help to construct a quality dashboard based on a healthcare quality framework.
We will search PubMed, MEDLINE, CINAHL, Scopus, and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (from January 2001 onwards). Complementary searches will be conducted in selected relevant journals. We will include systematic reviews and observational studies (cohort, cross-sectional, interrupted time series) in critically ill or injured patients published in English and focusing on air ambulance delivery and quality measures. Two reviewers will independently screen all citations, full-text articles, and abstract data. The study methodological quality (or bias) will be appraised using appropriate tools. Analysis of the characteristics associated with outcome measure will be mapped and described according to the proposed healthcare quality framework.
This review will contribute to the development of an air ambulance quality dashboard designed to combine multiple quality frameworks. Our findings will provide a basis for helping decision-making in health planning and policy.
PROSPERO CRD42019144652.