Abstract In the case of a medical emergency, a failure to provide timely care could have serious health consequences and even cause death. When the waiting time increases, the patient perceives the loss of well-being associated with the lack of primary care. Considering the willingness to pay (WTP) for avoiding human suffering in the context of emergency medical services (EMS) within the impact assessment of prehospital care is a relatively new research topic. This paper evaluates, through discrete choice models, the WTP for avoiding the externality associated with the human suffering experienced by the patient who does not receive immediate attention in a medical emergency. The cost of the service, the waiting time of the service, the time elapsed at the time of making the decision, the patient's condition and the time to aggravate are relevant to define the WTP in the context of EMS. Heterogeneity in the WTP was captured by the inclusion of some socioeconomic attributes and proxy variables to evaluate several levels of patient severity. The results are intended to demonstrate the relevance that this externality could have in the planning, operation, management of the emergency system and in the coordination of public policies aimed at providing efficient services with a better distribution of resources.

中文翻译：

---

愿意为紧急救护车服务付费

摘要在紧急医疗情况下，未能及时提供医疗服务可能对健康造成严重后果，甚至导致死亡。当等待时间增加时，患者会感觉缺乏初级保健而导致幸福感下降。在院前护理影响评估中考虑在紧急医疗服务（EMS）的背景下避免人类痛苦的支付意愿（WTP）是一个相对较新的研究主题。本文通过离散选择模型对WTP进行了评估，该WTP可以避免因在医疗紧急情况下没有立即受到关注的患者所遭受的人类痛苦而导致的外部性。服务费用，服务的等待时间，做出决定时经过的时间，患者的 在EMS的背景下，确定WTP的条件和加急时间是至关重要的。WTP的异质性通过包含一些社会经济属性和代理变量来评估，以评估患者严重性的几个级别。结果旨在证明这种外部性可能与应急系统的计划，运营，管理以及旨在提供有效服务并更好地分配资源的公共政策协调相关。