Читать книгу Emergency Medical Services - Группа авторов - Страница 28

When awarding grants for EMS under the EMS Systems Act, DHEW required regions to develop standards and guidelines for categorization of emergency departments in the following eight critical clinical groups: trauma, burns, spinal cord injuries, poisoning, cardiac, high‐risk infants, alcohol and drug abuse, and behavioral emergencies. Regions were required to identify the most appropriate receiving hospitals for each of these clinical problems.

In reality, only a small portion of emergency facilities was functionally categorized, and in many cases the system did not work as described on paper. Hospital administrators resisted losing control, physicians feared surrendering clinical judgment, and both feared losing patient revenues. Despite this resistance, DHEW used EMS hospital categorization to restructure acute patient distribution along the lines of clinical capability rather than market share.