Quality of Pre-hospital Care

Dear Colleagues,

Pre-hospital care is an important component of health systems, traditionally consisting of emergency medical services providing emergency treatment and conveying patients to emergency departments. The role of pre-hospital healthcare provision has rapidly evolved in recent decades. With this evolution, there has been an increased emphasis on the quality of care delivered to patients within the pre-hospital care setting, which now also includes the addressing of urgent and, in some cases, primary care needs. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the increasing emphasis on the development of quality indicators specific to pre-hospital care providers, as well as the professionalization agenda in emergency medical services. 

Therefore, we are pleased to invite you to submit original studies and review articles that contribute to our understanding of the quality of pre-hospital care. We are interested in receiving articles consisting of any relevant and robust methodology, including quantitative, qualitative and mixed-methods studies. Studies can focus on any element of care quality, such as patient experience, access to services, inequalities in care provision, patient safety, and interventions aiming to improve clinical and service-level outcomes. More specific suggested themes include but are not limited to:

• Development or evaluation of pre-hospital care pathways;
• Definitions of quality and/or quality indicators, including feedback systems for pre-hospital care staff or services to obtain final patient outcomes;
• Patient experience or satisfaction with pre-hospital care;
• Interventions situated within pre-hospital care setting that aim to improve access to care, patient safety or effectiveness;
• Professional roles (including professionalization) and staff training initiatives aimed at improving quality of care;
• Collaborative working within the pre-hospital care workforce and across organizational and professional boundaries, such as emergency department handover;
• Staff satisfaction and wellbeing initiatives and their links to healthcare quality and patient safety;
• Monitoring and evaluation of patient care related to Stroke, Acute Coronary Syndrome, Sepsis, Traumatic Brain Injury, Sudden Cardiac Arrest and Multiple Trauma (“EMS tracer diagnoses”). 

We look forward to receiving your contributions and welcome any expression of interest.

Dr. Jason Scott
Prof. Dr. Gina Agarwal
Prof. Dr. Peter McMeekin
Prof. Dr. Christoph Redelsteiner
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• emergency medical services
• pre-hospital care
• patient safety
• healthcare quality
• leadership
• patient experience
• quality indicators
• care pathways
• triage
• staff wellbeing