Characteristics of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) dispatch cancellations during a six-year period in a Dutch HEMS region
Background: For decades, Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) contribute greatly to prehospital patient care by performing advanced medical interventions on-scene. Unnecessary dispatches, resulting in cancellations, cause these vital resources to be temporarily unavailable and generate additional costs. A previous study showed a cancellation rate of 43.5% in our trauma region. However, little recent data about cancellation rates and reasons exist, despite revision of dispatch protocols. This study examines the current cancellation rate in our trauma region over a six-year period. Addit... Mehr ...
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Dokumenttyp: | Artikel |
Erscheinungsdatum: | 2021 |
Reihe/Periodikum: | Berkeveld , E , Sierkstra , T C N , Schober , P , Schwarte , L A , Terra , M , de Leeuw , M A , Bloemers , F W & Giannakopoulos , G F 2021 , ' Characteristics of helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) dispatch cancellations during a six-year period in a Dutch HEMS region ' , BMC Emergency Medicine , vol. 21 , no. 1 , 50 . https://doi.org/10.1186/s12873-021-00439-x |
Sprache: | Englisch |
Permalink: | https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-27464892 |
Datenquelle: | BASE; Originalkatalog |
Powered By: | BASE |
Link(s) : | https://research.vumc.nl/en/publications/5af77f88-44b7-4dbf-9424-04db386e8e3c |
Background: For decades, Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) contribute greatly to prehospital patient care by performing advanced medical interventions on-scene. Unnecessary dispatches, resulting in cancellations, cause these vital resources to be temporarily unavailable and generate additional costs. A previous study showed a cancellation rate of 43.5% in our trauma region. However, little recent data about cancellation rates and reasons exist, despite revision of dispatch protocols. This study examines the current cancellation rate in our trauma region over a six-year period. Additionally, cancellation reasons are evaluated per type of dispatch and initial incident report, upon which HEMS is dispatched. Methods: This retrospective study analyzed the data of the Dutch HEMS Lifeliner 1 (North-West region of the Netherlands, covering a population of 5 million inhabitants), analyzing all subsequent cases between April 1st 2013 and April 1st 2019. Patient characteristics, type of dispatch (primary; based on dispatcher criteria versus secondary, as judged by the first ambulance team on site), initial incident report received by the EMS dispatch center, and information regarding day- or nighttime dispatches were collected. In case of cancellation, cancel rate and reason per type of dispatch and initial incident report were assessed. Results: In total, 18,638 dispatches were included. HEMS was canceled in 54.5% (95% CI 53.8–55.3%) of cases. The majority of canceled dispatches (76.1%) were canceled because respiratory, hemodynamic, and neurologic parameters were stable. Dispatches simultaneously activated with EMS (primary dispatch) were canceled in 58.3%, compared to 15.1% when HEMS assistance was requested by EMS based on their findings on-scene (secondary dispatch). A cancellation rate of 54.6% was found in trauma related dispatches (n = 12,148), compared to 52.2% in non-trauma related dispatches (n = 5378). Higher cancellation rates exceeding 60% were observed in the less common dispatch categories, e.g., ...