South Korea to certify top private ambulance services with quality mark

The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Central Emergency Medical Center at the National Medical Center announced Tuesday that they will accept applications from Wednesday through Oct. 30 for a pilot certification program for emergency patient transport services.

Emergency patient transport services, governed by the Emergency Medical Service Act, use ambulances and other vehicles to move patients — including between hospitals — and play a key role in the broader emergency medical system.

The pilot program goes beyond simply verifying compliance with existing legal standards. It aims to comprehensively evaluate the quality of transport services and encourage companies to voluntarily improve their offerings.

Eligible applicants are companies that received a license to operate emergency patient transport services before Jan. 1, 2023, and have operated continuously through the application announcement date. They must also meet qualification requirements set out in the announcement, including their administrative penalty history and transport performance record.

Nonprofit corporations established under relevant laws may also apply if they meet the same requirements.

The certification review process begins with an eligibility check, followed by a document review and an on-site inspection.

A mandatory category covers legal compliance in areas such as personnel, facilities, capital, equipment and records. A quality category evaluates five areas: operations, personnel, equipment, infection control and records.

Key review criteria include training for transport staff, equipment management, ambulance disinfection and the reliability of transport records. Separate monitoring indicators will serve as baseline data for future system improvements and will not factor into certification decisions.

To receive certification, a company must satisfy all criteria in the mandatory category and score at least 60 points out of 100 in the quality category, with no individual indicator falling below 40 percent of its allocated score. Certified companies will receive a certificate and a certification mark, valid for two years from the date of certification.

Applications must be submitted through the Ambulance Record Management System. After eligibility verification, document and on-site reviews, and deliberation by a certification committee, final results are expected in December.

Details on eligibility requirements, review criteria and required documents are available on the notice board of the Ambulance Record Management System and in an online information session video.

Lee Jung-gyu, the Ministry of Health and Welfare's director of public health policy, said emergency patient transport is a vital pillar of the emergency medical system. "It is important to create an environment where the public can use these services with confidence," he said. "Based on the results of this pilot program, we will build the institutional foundation needed to improve the quality of emergency patient transport services."

Choe Dae-hae, director of the Central Emergency Medical Center, said the center would run the pilot program faithfully to help the certification system take stable root in the field and incorporate feedback from practitioners. "We will support transport companies in voluntarily improving their service quality," he said.