1.1 The Emergency Medical Services Management Information System (EMS-MIS) serves as a framework for the management and linkage of data documenting the complete emergency episode from onset through the pre-hospital, emergency department, and hospital phases to final discharge. This document establishes a standard guideline for the planning, development, and maintenance of an EMS-MIS framework, including linkage among pre-hospital, hospital, and other public safety or government agencies. The resultant EMS-MIS should be capable of monitoring the compliance of an EMS system with its established system standards, and provide an objective basis upon which different EMS systems can be comparatively evaluated.

1.2 EMS-MIS Goals:

1.2.1 To manage data regarding response to a medical emergency.

1.2.2 To provide a process for obtaining and documenting objective, reliable data.

1.2.3 To provide information that can be used to affect operational changes in an EMS system leading to the delivery of better quality emergency medical care.

1.2.4 To provide information to guide the rational investment of local, state, and national resources to improve and maintain EMS.

1.3 This guide will standardize data needed for decision making at various levels of the EMS system, and offer suggestions as to the appropriate use of this information.

1.4 This guide comments on several possible configurations for information flow and data processing, recognizing that no one configuration is best suited to all circumstances.

1.5 This guide focuses on pre-hospital medical activities, including emergency responses, scheduled transports, and all interinstitutional transfers.

1.6 This guide addresses EMS-MIS techniques applicable to the internal operations of outpatient and inpatient facilities as well as pre-hospital care providers.

1.7 This guide will not address specialized data systems and applications such as trauma registries, but will allow for interfacing with such applications.

1.8 This guide will not address computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, nor system status management (SSM) applications, but will allow for interfacing with such applications.