While hospital care is an important aspect in improving patient outcomes, pre-hospital care and services play an essential part in ensuring patient survival especially in acute life-threatening conditions since these are, more often than not, very time-sensitive situations that require prompt interventions. Unfortunately for countries like the Philippines, pre-hospital care is lacking not just in geographically isolated and disadvantaged areas (GIDAs), but even in more developed provinces and cities as well.
Because prehospital care already involves providing initial assessment and management to patients while transitioning to definitive management, patient morbidity and mortality could be decreased or avoided if this were provided promptly and adequately for both acute and chronic conditions. Aside from increasing the number of health workers trained in emergency services and equipment/ vehicles, improving prehospital care should also involve providing basic first aid education for those not in the medical field, make hospitals and health centers more accessible by improving roads and transportation services, and create a proper coordination system between the parties and institutions involved.