The Swedish Presidency
This article reviews the performance of the Swedish government whilst holding the European Union Council Presidency for six months during 2009, and thus has the opportunity to 'lead' the European Union. The article is published in the JCMS Annual Review, the Yearbook/special issue of the Journal of Common Market Studies (JCMS): the world's leading academic peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of European integration and the European Union, and the official journal of the University Association of European Contemporary Studies (UACES), Europe's largest academic organization of EU scholars and practitioners
An EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region: Good Intentions Meet Complex Challenges
The European Union is about to adopt a strategy for the Baltic Sea region. In the face of severe problems ‐ not least pertaining to the environment, maritime safety, and uneven economic development in the area ‐ the strategy aims at functional coordination and more efficient use of financial resources and already existing cooperation schemes. Being the first macro-regional cooperation of its kind in the EU, if successful this new model may be applied to other areas in the years to come. While the need for a strategic vision for the Baltic Sea region appears obvious, the proposed strategy nonetheless faces a series of challenges. These range from various difficulties in improving efficiency to problems related to the intra-regionalization of the EU and the lack of an external perspective, more specifically by ignoring Russia as a key determinant for the potential success of the strategy.
Expected annual emergency miles per ambulance: an indicator for measuring availability of Emergency Medical Services resources.
CONTEXT
To ensure equitable access to prehospital care, as recommended by the Rural and Frontier Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Agenda for the Future, policymakers will need a uniform measure of EMS infrastructure.


PURPOSE AND METHODS
This paper proposes a county-level indicator of EMS resource availability that takes into consideration existing EMS resources (ambulances), population health and demographics, and geographic factors. The indicator, the EXpected annual emergency miles per AMBulance (EXAMB), provides a basis for comparing ambulance availability across counties within states. A method for calculating the EXAMB indicator is demonstrated using data from 5 states.


FINDINGS
The EXAMB indicator was negatively correlated with ambulance availability per 100,000 population in 4 of the 5 states in the study. The indicator was positively correlated with rurality in 3 states. In Mississippi, South Carolina, and Wyoming, whole-county health professional shortage areas had median EXAMB values 45%-81% higher than those of the non-health professional shortage areas counties.


CONCLUSIONS
Future research should explore the relationship of the EXAMB to EMS outcomes, with the ultimate goal of developing a nationally recognized indicator of "adequate" EMS resource availability.