The Gap Before Care: Vinton EMS Numbers
This survey was conducted to evaluate the issues that patients experience in the time between when an emergency starts and when they are able to receive proper care. To conduct this research, I reached out to many EMS and other care facilities throughout Ohio, specifically in rural areas. Vinton County is ranked as the most rural county in Ohio, with 100% of its land area classified as rural (Stacker, 2022). I also received the most responses from their EMS team, so I decided to use their data in my visualizations.
Vinton County Pre-Arrival Healthcare Barriers
Reading the counts: 3/6 means 3 of the 6 respondents. Barriers were selected in the survey; care themes were coded from open-ended answers.
Travel impact on care: Color shows how often respondents reported that travel time affects care: frequently, occasionally, or never.
The above visualization was sketched in my notebook, and I then utilized ChatGPT to create interactive HTML diagrams. This allows viewers to easily visualize the connections between responses, how much time impacts patient care, and how these factors connect to issues and improvements that could be made in the process.
From this visualization, we can see how the Vinton EMS responders correlated longer times before receiving care with more serious healthcare issues. The main barriers to help were cell service and stress, and respondents largely agreed that knowledge and basic training would be the most helpful ways care could be improved. The full data from the Vinton EMS team used in this visualization is shown below:
Overall, this survey was successful in collecting data from a specific group of respondents. I received 6 responses out of the 24 members of Vinton’s EMS team, giving me around 25% of the population to represent. Of course, this data does not accurately represent every emergency situation or everyone in every rural county in Ohio. However, it does give an important look into what medical professionals see as issues in their field. Going into my project, I should focus on uses that improve training in emergency situations while considering people’s stress and possible low access to cellular connectivity. Below are both the survey questions and the full response table.
Full Survey
https://forms.gle/MKKTUWDdYXEGwag88
References
Stacker. (2022, July 25). Most rural counties in Ohio. NBC4 WCMH-TV. https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/most-rural-counties-in-ohio-2/
Use of Generative AI
No generative AI was used in the writing of this article. Generative AI was used to assist in creating the HTML visualizations of the collected survey data, translating hand-sketched visualization concepts into interactive digital diagrams. The data, analysis, and conclusions presented in the article were completed by the author.
