The concept of response time with minimal interval is intimately related to the practice of emergency medicine. The factors influencing this time interval are poorly understood.

In a process of improvement of response time, the impact of the patient’s age on ambulance departure intervals was investigated.

This was a 3-year observational study. Departure intervals of ambulances, according to age of patients, were analyzed and a multivariate analysis, according to time of day and suspected medical problem, was performed.

A total of 44,113 missions were included, 2,417 (5.5%) in the pediatric group. Mean departure delay for the adult group was 152.9 seconds, whereas it was 149.3 seconds for the pediatric group (P =.018).

A statistically significant departure interval difference between missions for children and adults was found. The difference, however, probably was not significant from a clinical point of view (four seconds).

SchneggB, PasquierM, CarronPN, YersinB, DamiF. Prehospital Emergency Medical Services Departure Interval: Does Patient Age Matter?Prehosp Disaster Med. 2016;31(6):608–613.