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The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands

Emergency calls may lead to the dispatch of either ground ambulances or helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS). For residents on isolated islands, the HEMS can reduce the time to hospital admission and lead to improved outcomes. This study investigated the emergency care for residents on isola...

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Autores principales: Herrlin Jensen, Alice, Sonne, Asger, Rasmussen, Lars S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8625314/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34828492
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9111446
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author Herrlin Jensen, Alice
Sonne, Asger
Rasmussen, Lars S.
author_facet Herrlin Jensen, Alice
Sonne, Asger
Rasmussen, Lars S.
author_sort Herrlin Jensen, Alice
collection PubMed
description Emergency calls may lead to the dispatch of either ground ambulances or helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS). For residents on isolated islands, the HEMS can reduce the time to hospital admission and lead to improved outcomes. This study investigated the emergency care for residents on isolated islands with a focus on the role of a physician-staffed helicopter. The data were obtained from Danish national registries and databases. We included data on emergency calls from isolated islands from the time of emergency call to discharge. We identified 1130 emergency calls from which 775 patients were registered with a hospital admission. Of these, 41% were transported by the HEMS and 36% by a ground ambulance. The median time to admission was 83 min (IQR 66–104) and 90 min (IQR 45–144) for the HEMS and ground ambulance, respectively (p = 0.26). The overall 30-day mortality was 6.2% (95% CI: 4.6–8.1%), and 37% of all the patients were admitted to the hospital with an unspecified diagnosis. The emergency calls from isolated islands led to the dispatch of the HEMS in 41% of the cases. The use of the HEMS did not significantly reduce the time to admission but was used in a greater proportion of patients with an acute cardiac disease (66%) or stroke (67%).
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spelling pubmed-86253142021-11-27 The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands Herrlin Jensen, Alice Sonne, Asger Rasmussen, Lars S. Healthcare (Basel) Article Emergency calls may lead to the dispatch of either ground ambulances or helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS). For residents on isolated islands, the HEMS can reduce the time to hospital admission and lead to improved outcomes. This study investigated the emergency care for residents on isolated islands with a focus on the role of a physician-staffed helicopter. The data were obtained from Danish national registries and databases. We included data on emergency calls from isolated islands from the time of emergency call to discharge. We identified 1130 emergency calls from which 775 patients were registered with a hospital admission. Of these, 41% were transported by the HEMS and 36% by a ground ambulance. The median time to admission was 83 min (IQR 66–104) and 90 min (IQR 45–144) for the HEMS and ground ambulance, respectively (p = 0.26). The overall 30-day mortality was 6.2% (95% CI: 4.6–8.1%), and 37% of all the patients were admitted to the hospital with an unspecified diagnosis. The emergency calls from isolated islands led to the dispatch of the HEMS in 41% of the cases. The use of the HEMS did not significantly reduce the time to admission but was used in a greater proportion of patients with an acute cardiac disease (66%) or stroke (67%). MDPI 2021-10-26 /pmc/articles/PMC8625314/ /pubmed/34828492 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9111446 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Herrlin Jensen, Alice
Sonne, Asger
Rasmussen, Lars S.
The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands
title The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands
title_full The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands
title_fullStr The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands
title_full_unstemmed The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands
title_short The Role of a Physician-Staffed Helicopter in Emergency Care of Patients on Isolated Danish Islands
title_sort role of a physician-staffed helicopter in emergency care of patients on isolated danish islands
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8625314/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34828492
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/healthcare9111446
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