References
- Selden BS, Schnitzer PG, Nolan FX, Veronesi JE The "no-patient" run: 2,698 patients evaluated but not transported by paramedics. Prehosp Disaster Med. 1991;6:135–42.
- Personal communication and CRCA Quality Improvement Summary Report. Provided by Lynn K. Wittwer, Medical Program Director, Office of Clark County, Washington EMS, September 1998.
- Brown E, Sindair J. The emergent problem of ambulance mis-use. Ann Emerg Med. 1993;22:646–50.
- Richards JR, Ferral SJ. Inappropriate use of emergency medical services transport: comparison of provider and patient perspec-tives. Acad Emerg Med. 1999;6:14–20.
- Camasso-Richardson K, Wilde JA, Petrack EM. Medically unnecessary pediatric ambulance transports: a medical taxi service? Acad Emerg Med. 1997;4:1137–41.
- Foltin GL. Critical issues in urban emergency medical services for children. Pediatrics. 1995;96(Jul suppl):174–9.
- Gardener GJ. The use and abuse of the emergency ambulance service: some of the factors affecting the decision whether to call an emergency ambulance. Arch Emerg Med. 1990;7:81–9.
- Rademaker AW, Powell DG, Read J1-1. Inappropriate use and unmet need in paramedic and nonparamedic ambulance sys-tems. Ann Emerg Med. 1987;16:553–6.
- Gibson G. Measures of emergency ambulance effectiveness: unmet need and inappropriate use. J Am Coll Emerg Physicians. 1977;6:389–92.
- Kost S, Arruda J. Appropriateness of ambulance transportation to a suburban pediatric emergency department. Prehosp Emerg Care. 1999;3:187–90.
- Ho MT, Eisenberg MS, Litwin PE, Schaeffer SM, Damon SK. Delay between onset of chest pain and seeking medical care: the effect of public education. Ann Emerg Med. 1989;18:727–31.
- Wielgosz AT, Nolan RP, Earp JA, Wielgosz MB. Reasons for patients' delay in response to symptoms of acute myocardial infarction. Can Med Assoc J. 1988;139:853–7.
- Zachariah BS. The problem of ambulance misuse: ehose prob-lem is it, anyway? Acad Emerg Med. 1999;6:2–3.
- Koenig KL. Unscheduled access to health care: re-engineering the 911 system. Acad Emerg Med. 1996;3:989–91.
- National Emergency Number Association (NENA) data. July 1997. (For correspondence contact NENA, 47849 Papermill Road, Coshocton, OH 43812–9724.).
- US EMS Market Report. JEMS/ECRC Spring/Summer 1995. (For correspondence contact Ty Mayfield, Director, Emergency Consulting Research Center, 1947 Camino Vida Roble, Suite 200, Carlsbad, CA 92998).
- Clawson JL Doernocoeur KB. Principles of Emergency Medical Dispatch, 2nd edition. Salt Lake City, UT: Priority Press, 1998.
- Neely KW, Eldukar J, Drake ME. Can current EMS dispatch pro-tocols identify layperson-reported sentinel conditions? Prehosp Emerg Care. 2000;2:38–44.
- Neely KW, Norton RL, Schmidt TA. The strength of specific EMS dispatcher questions for identifying patients with impor-tant clinical field findings. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2000;4:322–6.
- Neely KW, Eldurkar J, Drake ME. Can current dispatch proto-cols identify layperson-reported sentinel conditions? Prehosp Emerg Care. 2000;4:238–44.
- Schmidt TA, Atcheson R, Federiuk C, et al. Evaluation of proto-cols allowing EMTs to determine need for treatment and trans-port. Acad Emerg Med. 2000;7:663–6.
- Schmidt TA, Atcheson R, Federiuk C, et al. Hospital follow-up of patients categorized as not needing an ambulance using a set of emergency medical technician protocols. Prehosp Emerg Care. 20015: 366–70.
- Breiman L, Freidman J1-1, Olshen RA, et al. Classification and Regression Trees. New York: Chapman & Hall, 1984.
- Efron B. The jackknife, the bootstrap and other resampling plans. In: The Regional Conference Series in Applied Mathe-matics. Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 1982.
- Stone M. Cross-validatory choice and the assessment of statisti-cal predictions. J R Stat Soc Ser B. 1974;36:111–47.
- Geisser S. The predictive sample reuse method with applica-tions. J Am Stat Assoc. 1975;70:320–8.
- Bailey ED, O'Connor RE, Ross RW. The use of emergency med-ical dispatch protocols to reduce the number of inappropriate scene responses made by advanced life support personnel. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2000;4:186–9.
- Cone DC, Wydro GC. Can basic life support personnel safely determine that advanced life support is not needed? Prehosp Emerg Care. 2001;5:360–5.
- Kamper M, Mahoney BD, Nelson S, Peterson J. Feasibility of paramedic treatment and referral of minor illnesses and injuries. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2001;5:371–8.
- Hauswald M. Can paramedics safely decide which patients do not need ambulance transport or emergency department care? Prehosp Emerg Care. 2002;6:383–6.
- Silvestri S, Rothrock SG, Kennedy D, Ladde J, Bryant M, Pagane J. Can paramedics accurately identify patients who do not require emergency department care? Prehosp Emerg Care. 2002; 6:387–90.
- McClean A, Maiao RF, Domeier RM. The epidemiology of pain in the prehospital setting Prehosp Emerg Care. 2002;6:402–5.
- McEachin CC, McDermott JT, Swor R. Few emergency medical service patients with lower-extremity fractures receive prehos-pital analgesia. Prehosp Emerg Care. 2002;6:406–10.
- Dunford JV. Emergency medical dispatch. Emerg Med Clin N Am. 2002;20:859–75.
- Laupacis A, Sekar N, Shell IG. Clinical prediction rules. JAMA. 1997;277:488–94.