RESUMEN
<p><b>Objective:</b> Involvement of all regional medical facilities in a trauma system is challenging in rural regions. We hypothesized that the physician-staffed helicopter emergency medical service potentially encouraged local facilities to participate in trauma systems by providing the transport of patients with trauma to those facilities in a rural setting.</p><p><b>Materials and Methods:</b> We performed two retrospective observational studies. First, yearly changes in the numbers of patients with trauma and destination facilities were surveyed using records from the Miyazaki physician-staffed helicopter emergency medical service from April 2012 to March 2014. Second, we obtained data from medical records regarding the mechanism of injury, severity of injury, resuscitative interventions performed within 24 h after admission, secondary transports owing to undertriage by attending physicians, and deaths resulting from potentially preventable causes. Data from patients transported to the designated trauma center and those transported to non-designated trauma centers in Miyazaki were compared.</p><p><b>Results:</b> In total, 524 patients were included. The number of patients transported to non-designated trauma centers and the number of non-designated trauma centers receiving patients increased after the second year. We surveyed 469 patient medical records (90%). There were 194 patients with major injuries (41%) and 104 patients with multiple injuries (22%), and 185 patients (39%) received resuscitative interventions. The designated trauma centers received many more patients with trauma (366 vs. 103), including many more patients with major injuries (47% vs. 21%, <i>p</i> < 0.01) and multiple injuries (25% vs. 13%, <i>p</i> < 0.01), than the non-designated trauma centers. The number of patients with major injuries and patients who received resuscitative interventions increased for non-designated trauma centers after the second year. There were 9 secondary transports and 26 deaths. None of these secondary transports resulted from undertriage by staff physicians and none of these deaths resulted from potentially preventable causes.</p><p><b>Conclusion:</b> The rural physician-staffed helicopter emergency medical service potentially encouraged non-designated trauma centers to participate in trauma systems while maintaining patient safety.</p>
RESUMEN
Objective To determine whether field triage would reduce median contact-to-device ( C2D ) time in patients with ST-segment elevation acute myocardial infarction ( STEMI ) . Methods Consecutive patients with STEMI underwent primary percutaneous coronary intervention( PCI) from March 2010 to February 2014 in Shanghai Pudong Gongli Hospital were analyzed. Patients were divided into two groups. A total of 121 patients were admitted by field triage and 101 patients by non-field triage. The primary study point was C2D time and the study points secondary included ( door-to-balloor, D2B) time, peak Troponin I ( TnI) levels, hospital mortality and 30 days follow-up mortality. Results Baseline and procedural characteristics between the two groups were comparable. Comparing to non-field triage group, the C2D time was reduced [(92. 0 ± 56. 0)min vs. (131. 0 ± 61. 0)min,P﹤0. 01]. The D2B time was lower in the field triage group vs. the non-field triage group [(55. 0 ±26. 0)min vs. (96. 0 ±31. 0)min,P﹤0. 01]. The percentage of patients with C2D time less than 90 minutes increased significantly from 85. 1% to 98. 3%( P﹤0. 01 ) in the field triage group. Peak TnI level was significantly reduced in the field triage group [(23. 5 ±22. 0) μg/L vs. (43. 5 ± 39. 0) μg/L,P﹤0. 01]. In-hospital mortality and 30 days follow-up mortality did not significantly differ between the 2 groups (3. 3% and 3. 0%, P=0. 885;3. 3% and 5. 0%, P=0. 544, respectively). Conclusions In STEMI patients, field triage was associated with significantly reduced C2D and D2B times.