Affiliations 

  • 1 Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia
  • 2 Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
  • 3 Hospital Sultanah Nur Zahirah
  • 4 Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin
MyJurnal

Abstract

The importance of rapid ambulance response to emergency medical crises is undeniable. An early
access to advanced care is crucial to saving a life. Modern computerised call centre and the hospitalbased ambulance services are believed to enhance the quality of service delivery. However, whether
it will further reduce the ambulance response time is still debatable. A cross-sectional study was
conducted in June 2012 until July 2012 at three selected tertiary hospitals in Malaysia. The
ambulance response time was expressed in a median and interquartile range (IQR) and MannWhitney U test was used to determine the associations between types of ambulance and
computerised call centre system versus voice only. Wilcoxon Rank Sign Test was used to assess
the significance of means difference. A hospital-based ambulance had the median time of 0.19
minutes while community-based ambulance had the median time of 0.20 minutes (The Z score -
0.916, p-value - 0.360). The hospital with computer call centre had the median time of 0.19 minutes
while hospital without computer call centre had the median of 0.20 minutes (The Z score - 0.816, P
value - 0.414).The response time of hospital-based ambulance equipped with computerised call
centre system was comparable in three selected tertiary hospitals in Malaysia.