Assessing information quality deficiencies in emergency medical service performance

There is an inevitable need for information sharing and coordinating among response departments during the occurrences of emergencies. Information quality in EMS performance has been the subject of very little research so far, especially on the influence of information deficiencies to EMS performance, despite the fact that the studied information quality in healthcare has been discussed. Due to the excessive amount of information and the dynamic change in the environment, the information decision process has become the backbone of EMS. Aim of this paper is to define dimensions for describing information quality deficiencies concerning the information flow across units from the communication center to dispatch center, to mobile rescue units, and to emergency department (ED). We present a literature review on information quality in emergency medical service (EMS) and indentify and define the dimensions for describing information quality., Three case studies are presented in order to describe the coordination in emergency service performance through information exchange and sharing. The contribution lies in the defined and exemplified dimensions for describing information quality deficiencies as a step towards our future work on information integration model for EMS performance improvement. A gross list of eight dimensions were defined from literature and used in describing information quality deficiencies in EMS performance of three cases.

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