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Operations & systems
EMS dashboards: thin crisis evidence
Performance Indicators in Emergency Medical Services: A Scoping Review of Dashboard Applications in the Context of Crisis Management
Archives of Academic Emergency Medicine · 2026-09-07 · Added 7 October 2026
Scoping review of 26 studies found EMS performance dashboards are used almost exclusively for routine operations — only one study addressed crisis conditions and it used no dashboard.
- Study type
- Systematic review
- Design
- Scoping review (PRISMA-ScR)
- Participants
- 26 studies
- Main finding
- KPIs mapped to the Donabedian structure/process/outcome model with time-based indicators most frequent; 8 of 26 studies (31%) reported dashboards, all in routine operations, and only one study addressed crisis conditions (without a dashboard)
- Caveat
- Scoping review without formal quality appraisal, drawing on a thin and largely non-crisis literature
- Bottom line
- Context only
Why it matters in Australia (Medium relevance). Dashboard maturity varies across Australian services and the review shows the crisis-management evidence base is essentially empty, so this informs system-design discussions rather than current practice.
Learning goal
Understand how performance dashboards in ambulance systems could support decision-making during major incidents and crises.
More
- Topic: Operations & systems
- Daily scan: 7 October 2026
- Podcast: Paramedic Papers Daily, 7 October 2026
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