Insights into collapse in ambulances (CIA): a retrospective analysis of interfacility transfers from Emergency Medical Services (EMS) of Sindh, Pakistan

Description

Kamran Idris and co-authors count the patients who die in the back of an ambulance between hospitals in Sindh, Pakistan, and give the event a name: collapse in ambulances. Ambulance services carry the health system of poorer countries, yet deaths during interfacility transfer were unmeasured. Their 2026 paper mines the provincial service's records from July 2023 to February 2024.

Of 195,638 cases, thirty-seven ended in such a collapse, a rate of 0.019 percent, while the average response time stayed under ten minutes. Abnormal breathing accounted for a third of the collapses and cardiac or respiratory arrest for much of the rest. The team also catalogued case types, transfer reasons, and the procedures attempted on the road. The authors argue that naming and counting the event is the first step toward the protocols, staffing, and equipment choices that might prevent the next one.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13386838