Performance measurements in emergency medical services.

With the strong encouragement of leading health care agencies, business principles are being implemented throughout health care, including emergency medical services (EMS). The reason is simple--quality of care can be enhanced by incorporating the management concepts of continuous quality improvement (CQI). The CQI process couples carefully identified, measurable performance indicators with information systems to monitor, analyze, and trend data. Benchmarking outcomes with other EMS systems allows the identification of "best practices" and the evolution of standards. Emergency medical services professionals must actively participate with the broader health care community in creating performance measurements to ensure that high-quality care is delivered consistently.