The status of air medical quality assurance.

In February of 1989, the AAMS Quality Assurance (QA) Committee surveyed 177 flight programs regarding their QA activities. There was a 58% return rate, with the majority of the respondents being single hospital-based programs. Eighty-nine percent of those surveyed stated that they wanted assistance with their QA programs. The majority of the respondents (95%) review patient care issues, with most performing regular flight record review (88%) and monitoring of the timeliness of care delivered (85%), such as scene/response times. The information generated by the survey has been used by the AAMS QA Committee in planning QA seminars, and may also be helpful to individual air medical programs in designing their QA programs, as well as a tool for use in comparing themselves to other programs. Specific areas needing improvement are mentioned and AAMS is challenged to offer leadership and support in these efforts.

Duke Scholars

Author Debra Travers School of Nursing