Background: Timely advanced hospital level care gives patients the best chance of survival from time critical injury and medical conditions. Little is known about the coverage and accessibility of emergency ambulance services (EAS) in New Zealand despite its long travel distances and dispersed population present many challenges to the delivery of timely access to EAS and healthcare.
Aims: To determine the geographical and population coverage of EAS and advanced hospital-level care providers in New Zealand.
Methods: EAS (road and air) response times from meshblocks (small geographical areas) was estimated using the location of: 1) the nearest EAS stations and 2) the nearest advanced hospital service. Physical addresses of EAS stations and advanced hospital services were converted to geographic coordinates and estimates of driving and flying response times (sum of despatch time, travel time from ambulance base location, on-scene time and hospital travel time) for each meshblock were calculated. Meshblocks covered by existing EAS within the “golden-hour” were identified.
Results: The majority (84%) of the NZ population have EAS access to advanced hospital services within 60 minutes. Sub-populations with poor emergency coverage include older residents, Indigenous Maori and those living in regions with low to moderate population density.
Discussion & conclusions: Over 694,000 New Zealanders do not have timely access within 60 minutes to advanced hospital care with areas of disparities in access found, suggesting opportunities exist to maximise access to these services to increase the chances of survival from time critical injury and medical conditions in New Zealand.