This study examines the effects of the public’s perception of emergency medical service (EMS) on the public health system’s brand equity and the moderating effect of governance on this relationship using Keller’s customer-based brand equity model. It uses four EMS functions: rescue/first-aid and transfer activities; disaster prevention, preparation, and response activities; educational activities in urgent situations; and medical treatment in emergency rooms to examine the effects of them on brand meaning of the public health system. Our findings are important for understanding the public as customers of the public health system and devising and/ or adapting healthcare policies and marketing strategies to develop brand equity and increase customers’ loyalty to the public health system.

1. Introduction
2. Literature Review and HypothesisDevelopment
    2.1 Emergency Medical Service as aSubsystem of Public Health System
    2.2 Brand Equity
    2.3 Customer-Based Brand Equity in PublicHealth Service
    2.4 Role of Public Health Service Governancein Establishing Image
3. Method
    3.1 Development of the Instrument
    3.2 Survey Procedure and Sampling
4. Results
    4.1 Reliability and Validation of SurveyQuestionnaires
    4.2 Hypothesis Testing
5. Conclusion
    5.1 Discussion and Implications
    5.2 Limitation and Future Research
References

• Ki-Young Kim(국립중앙의료원) | 김기영
• Yunsik Choi(메레디스대 경영대학) | 최윤식
• Jiyeon Choi(세종플랫폼) | 최지연
• Sungyong Choi(한양대학교 경영대학) | 최성용 Corresponding Author