Challenges of Transferring Burn Victims to Hospitals: Experiences of Emergency Medical Services Personnel

A thorough understanding of experiences of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel related to the field transfer of burn victims can be used as a prerequisite of quality improvement of pre-hospital clinical care for these kinds of victims. The aim of the present study was to explore the experiences of EMS personnel during transferring burn victims. In this qualitative research, content analysis was performed to explore the experiences and perceptions of a purposeful sample of Iranian EMS personnel (n = 32). Data collection continued until a point of saturation was reached. Data was collected using in-depth semi-structured interview and field observations and analyzed by qualitative inductive content analysis.

After data analyzing from experiences of pre-hospital emergency personnel during transferring burn victims 7 subcategories were developed and classified into three main categories as challenges of transferring burn victim including; risks during patient transfer, restrictions in the admission of burn victims and uncertainties about patient referral. This study showed that different factors affect the quality of pre-hospital clinical services to the field transfer of burn victims that should be considered to improve the quality of pre-hospital clinical care of burn victims in dynamic programs. Further investigation is needed to explore the process of these crucial services.