Identifying approaches for optimal management of ambulance-to-hospital offload processes

The availability of ambulance services is critically important to meet call demands of a community for emergency medical services and to ensure that patients can access care at the emergency department as quickly as possible. In recent months, the issue of ambulance offload delay has been compounded by unprecedented staffing strains in Canadian hospitals that have forced urgent-care department closures and limited the availability of emergency-care services. The constant pressure for EMS to respond rapidly to dynamic call demand patterns and minimize offload delays has challenged EMS and ED administrators to refine offload management systems through process-improvement strategies. This rapid synthesis explores the features and impacts of approaches that can be used to optimally manage ambulance-to-hospital offload processes and help minimize ambulance offload delay.