Prehospital Emergency Medical Services Personnel in Rural Areas: Results from a Survey in Nine States, compares availability of prehospital emergency personnel in urban and rural areas and shows that “rural agencies had lower staff skill levels, higher reliance on volunteers, higher vacancy ratios, and less access to oversight” from medical directors at the scene and en route to definitive care. Conducted by the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center, the study advises that rural agencies “may need to find more robust sources of funding to recruit and retain an adequate workforce, which in turn could require a shift from volunteer to paid staffing.”
