title: A regression-like approach to developing a severity index for EMS patients.
abstract: An approach to constructing a severity index for emergency medical services patients with cardiac-related problems is developed. The procedure is based on two linear programming models and produces a set of weights which can be added to estimate the severity of a patient's condition. A set of patients independent of the set used to derive the weights was ranked with respect to severity by a set of physicians who were also independent of the model development process. The average value for Spearman's rank order correlation coefficient (rho) between a ranking based on the severity weights and the physicians was 0.6897. The average value of rho calculated over all possible pairs of the physician rankings was 0.6859. Thus, the ranking based on the severity weights correlated as well with the physicians ranking as did the physician rankings among themselves.
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Statistics, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg 39406.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Nagurney
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004632:Emergency Medical Services / Q000145:classification*; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D006331:Heart Diseases / Q000145:classification*; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011382:Programming, Linear; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D014481:United States