Evaluation of influence for community emergency medical service after the closure of emergency hospital: with basic analysis by GIS

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The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accessibility to emergency medical hospitals in Shimane Prefecture by using actual emergency recognition data and GIS. We gathered emergency recognition data from four fire departments and then evaluated the time from initial response to the emergency call to the arrival at the scene and the time an ambulance drives from the scene to hospitals. Additionally, we categorized areas within 3 mins., 10 mins., 30 mins. and over 30 mins. transportation time to evaluate the accessibility to emergency hospitals by using GIS.As result of our analysis, firstly we confirmed patients were forced to take longer transportation time in weeknights, compared to other time zones in some fire department areas. Secondly, we found there was a disparity of transportation time to emergency hospitals among secondary medical care zones and estimated residents in the Ohda area were influenced by the closure of the emergency unit in terms of accessibility.